WORKS 


OF 


FISHER  AMES. 


COMPILED  BY  A  NUMBER  OF  HIS  FRIENDS 


^^•'- 


TO  WHICH  ARE  PREFIXED.  \\ 


NOTICES 


OF  HIS  LIFE  AND   CHARACTER 


NIHIL    TETIGIT    Q_UOD    NON    ORNAVIT. 


BOSTON : 

PRINTED  AND  PUBLISHED  BY  T.  B.  WAIT 
COURT-STREET. 

1809. 


f 

^ 


DISTRICT  OF  MASSACHUSETTS,  TO  WIT  : 

BE  it  remembered,  That  on  the  ninth  day  of  February,  in  the  thirty-third  year  of  the 
Independence  of  the  United  States  of  America,  Frances  Ames,  of  the  said  district,  has  depos 
ited  in  this  office,  the  title  of  a  book,  the  right  whereof  she  claims  as  proprietor,  in  the  words 
following,  to  wit :  "  Works  of  Fisher  Ames.  Compiled  by  a  number  of  his  Friends.  To 
which  are  prefixed,  Notices  of  his  Life  and  Character.  Nihil  tetigit  quod  non  omavit." 

In  conformity  to  the  Act  of  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  entitled,  *'  An  act  for  the 
encouragement  of  learning  by  securing  the  copies  of  Maps,  Charts,  and  Books  to  the  author* 
and  proprietors  of  such  copies,  during  the  times  therein  mentioned  ;"  and  also  to  an  act  en 
titled,  "  An  act  supplementary  to  ;iii  act,  entitled,  an  act  for  the  encouragement  of  learning, 
by  securing  the  copies  of  Maps,  Charts,  and  Books,  to  the  authors  and  proprietors  of  such 
copies  during  the  times  therein  mentioned ;  and  extending  the  benefits  thereof  to  the  arts  of 
Designing,  Engraving,  and  Etching  Historical,  and  other  Prints." 

WILLIAM  S.  SHAW, 
Clerk  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


NOTICES 

OF  THE  LIFE  AND  CHARACTER  OF 

FISHER  AMES. 


M 


,R.  AMES  was  distinguished  among  the  eminent  men  of 
our  country.  All  admitted,  for  they  felt,  his  extraordinaiy 
powers  ;  few  pretended  to  doubt,  if  any  seemed  to  deny,  the 
purity  of  his  heart.  His  exemplary  life  commanded  respect ; 
the  charms  of  his  conversation  and  manners  won  affection. 
He  was  equally  admired  and  beloved. 

His  publick  career  was  short,  but  brilliant.  Called  into  the 
service  of  his  country  in  seasons  of  her  most  critical  emer 
gency,  and  partaking  in  the  management  of  her  councils 
during  a  most  interesting  period  of  her  history,  he  obtained  a 
place  in  the  first  rank  of  her  statesmen,  legislators,  orators, 
and  patriots.  By  a  powerful  and  original  genius,  an  impres 
sive  and  uniform  virtue  he  succeeded,  as  fully  perhaps  as  any 
political  character  in  a  republick  agitated  by  divisions  ever  did, 
in  surmounting  the  two  pernicious  vices,  designated  by  the 
inimitable  biographer  of  Agricola,  insensibility  to  merit  on 
the  one  hand,  and  envy  on  the  other. 

BECOMING  a  private  citizen,  he  still  operated  extensively 
upon  the  publick  opinion  and  feeling  by  conversation  and 


1V  LIFE  OF  FISHER  AMES. 

writing.  When  least  in  the  publick  eye,  he  remained  the 
object  of  enthusiastick  regard  to  his  friends,  and  of  fond  reli 
ance  and  hope  to  those  lovers  of  his  country  who  discern  the 
connection  between  the  agency  of  a  few  and  the  welfare  of 
the  many  ;  whilst  in  the  breasts  of  the  community  at  large  he 
engaged  a  sentiment  of  lively  tenderness  and  peculiar  respect. 

THE  sickness  which  diffused  an  oppressive  languor  upon 
his  best  years,  was  felt  to  be  a  common  misfortune ;  and  the 
news  of  his  death,  though  not  unexpected,  gave  a  pang  of  dis 
tress  to  the  hearts  of  thousands.  Those  inhabitants  of  the 
capital  of  Massachusetts  who  had  always  delighted  to  honour 
him,  solicited  his  lifeless  remains  for  the  privilege  of  indulg 
ing  their  grief,  and  evincing  their  admiration  by  funeral  obse 
quies.  The  sud  rites  being  performed,  those  who  had  cher 
ished  his  character  and  talents  with  such  constant  regard  and 
veneration,  and  who  felt  their  own  and  the  publick  loss  in  his 
death  with  poignant  affliction,  demanded  a  publication  of  his 
works.  They  urged,  that  it  would  gratify  their  affection, 
reflect  honour  on  his  name,  and  be  a  voice  of  instruction  and 
warning  to  his  countiy. 

IN  compliance  with  their  general  and  earnest  wish  this  vo 
lume  is  given  to  the  world.  Some  account  of  the  author's 
life  and  character  is  thought  due,  if  not  to  his  fame,  yet  to  the 
interest  which  all  have  in  those  "  who  were  born,  and  who  have 
acted,  as  though  they  were  born  for  their  country  and  for 
mankind." 

HE  needs  not  our  praises  ;  he  would  be  dishonoured  by  our 
flattery  ;  but  he  was  our  distinguished  benefactor.  We  owe  a 
record  of  this  kind,  though  imperfectly  executed,  to  our  sense 
of  his  merits  and  services,  and  to  our  gratitude  to  heaven  who 
endues  some  with  extraordinary  gifts  to  be  employed  for  the 
benefit  of  others.  It  is  the  part  of  justice  to  afford  to  those 
who  desire  it  all  practicable  lights  to  guide  their  judgment  of 
an  eminent  man  living  in  dmes  and  acting  in  situations,  which 
expose  his  character  to  be  imperfectly  understood.  We  must 
pay  respect  to  that  natural  and  laudable  curiosity  of  mankind, 
which  asks  an  explanation  of  the  causes  that  may  have  contributed 


LIFE  OF  FISHER  AMES.  v 

to  form  any  peculiar  excellence  in  one  of  our  species,  and  which 
takes  an  interest  in  the  circumstances  and  events  of  his  life. 
Examples  of  great  talents  diligently  exerted,  and  of  shining 
virtues  practised  with  uniformity  should  be  preserved  and  dis 
played  as  furnishing  models  in  conduct  and  incentives  to  excel 
lence.  By  such  exhibitions  the  timid  are  encouraged  and  the 
inactive  roused.  Emulation  fires  generous  spirits  to  endeav 
our  to  fill  the  void  made  by  the  loss  of  the  eminent.  Are  any- 
capable  of  doing  great  and  durable  good  to  their  country  and 
the  world,  they  are  stimulated  to  tread  in  the  fair  paths  which 
have  been  trodden  before  ;  and  those  whom  nature  and  cir 
cumstances  have  confined  to  a  small  compass  of  action  are  in 
structed  to  place  their  single  talent  to  the  best  account. 

FISHER  AMES  lived  and  died  in  his  native  place.  He  was 
born  April  9,  1758,  in  the  old  parish  of  Dedham,  a  pleasant 
country  town  about  nine  miles  south  of  Boston,  and  the  shire 
town  of  Norfolk.  He  sprung  from  one  of  the  oldest  families 
in  Massachusetts.  In  the  line  of  his  ancestry  is  the  Rev. 
William  Ames,  a  famous  English  divine,  author  of  the  Me 
dulla  Theologiae  and  several  controversial  tracts.  He  was 
educated  at  Christ's  College,  Cambridge,  and  to  prevent  an 
expulsion  in  form  on  account  of  his  strenuous  assertion  of 
Calvinistical  principles  he  forsook  this  college,  went  abroad, 
and  was  chosen  by  the  states  of  Friesland  professor  of  their 
university.  He  was  at  the  synod  of  Dort,  1618.  He  had  de 
termined  to  emigrate  to  New-England,  but  was  prevented  by- 
death  in  November,  1633. 

THE  father  of  FISHER  AMES  was  a  physician  and  the  son 
of  a  physician  who  lived  in  Bridgewater.  His  mother  was 
daughter  of  Jeremiah  Fisher,  Esq.  one  of  the  most  respectable 
farmers  in  the  county.  Dr.  Nathaniel  Ames  was  a  man  of 
acuteness  and  wit,  of  great  activity,  and  a  cheerful  and  amiable 
temper.  To  his  skill  in  his  profession  he  added  a  knowledge 
of  natural  philosophy,  astronomy,  and  malhematicks.  He  died 
in  July,  1764,  leaving  four  sons  and  one  daughter. 

FISHER  was  the  youngest  child.  The  mother,  as  if  "  antici 
pating  the  future  lustre  of  the  jewel  committed  to  her  care," 


vi  LIFE  OF  FISHER  AMES. 

early  resolved  to  struggle  with  her  narrow  circumstances  in 
order  to  give  this  son  a  literary  education ;  and  she  has  lived 
to  see  his  eminence  and  prosperity,  to  receive  the  expressions 
of  his  filial  piety,  and  to  weep  over  his  grave. 

IT  has  been  observed,  that  those  who  are  prodigies  of  infant 
genius  often  disappoint  the  expectations  they  have  raised, 
•whilskrninds  of  no  peculiar  promise  and  even  of  tardy  growth 
in  early  years  have  been  known  at  length  to  bear  vigorous 
and  lasting  fruit.  On  the  other  hand  it  cannot  be  denied, 
that  a  great  proportion  of  those  who  display  extraordinary- 
powers  in  mature  life  give  indications  of  decided  superiority 
in  youth.  The  accounts  of  Mr.  AMES  prove  the  early  expan 
sion  of  his  faculties.  When  he  was  six  years  old,  he  began 
the  study  of  Latin.  From  this  time  till  he  entered  the  uni 
versity  he  had  a  variety  of  instructors  in  succession.  He  at 
tended  the  town  school,  when  the  master  happened  to  be 
capable  of  teaching  him,  and  at  other  times  recited  his  lessons 
to  the  Rev.  Mr.  Haven,  minister  of  the  parish,  a  gentleman 
to  whom  he  always  showed  much  respect  and  friendship. 

His  frequent  change  of  instructers  and  desultory  application 
to  the  languages  were  obvious  disadvantages  attending  his  ini 
tiation  in  classical  literature.  He  did  not  receive  that  exact  and 
sedulous  culture,  which  such  a  mind  as  his  deserved  and  would 
have  fully  repaid.  His  native  energies  in  a  good  degree  sup 
plied  these  defects  and  carried  him  forward  in  the  road  of  im 
provement.  In  July?  1770,  soon  after  the  completion  of  his 
twelfth  year,  he  was  admitted  to  Harvard  college.  Previous 
to  his  beinp-  offered,  he  was  examined  by  a  gentleman  accus 
tomed  to  teach  the  languages,  who  expressed  admiration  of  his 
quickness  and  accuracy,  and  pronounced  him  a  youth  of  un 
common  attainments,  and  bright  promise. 

DURING  this  period  he  was  remarkable  for  close  application 
in  the  hours  of  study,  and  for  animation  and  gaiety  in  the  in 
tervals  of  relaxation.  He  entered  the  university,  indeed,  at 
too  tender  an  age  for  the  mind  to  grasp  the  abstract  sciences. 
It  is  said,  however,  that  in  the  literary  exercises  in  general 
he  was  ready  and  accurate,  and  in  particular  branches  distin- 


LIFE  OF  FISHER  AMES.  vii 

guished.  He  very  soon  gained  the  reputation  of  shining  parts. 
He  was  attentive  to  his  studies  and  regular  in  his  conduct. 
Young  as  he  was,  he  did  not  abuse  his  power  over  that  portion 
of  his  time  which  the  laws  of  the  institution  submit  to  the  dis 
cretion  of  the  student,  by  idleness  and  trifling ;  nor  his  liberty 
of  self-direction  in  the  choice  of  his  associates,  by  consorting 
with  the  vicious.  At  that  early  period  he  might  say,  as  he  did 
when  he  came  into  life  :  "  I  have  never  sought  friends,  whom 
I  was  not  willing  and  desirous  to  be  known  to  have." 

IT  was  not  his  fancy  or  his  passion  to  break  through  the 
fences  of  discipline,  or  come  into  collision  with  the  authority 
of  his  preceptors.  He  had  a  good  standing  with  the  govern 
ment  of  the  college,  without  losing  any  part  of  the  friendship 
and  esteem  of  his  fellow-students.  His  tutors  were  accustom 
ed  to  speak  of  his  qualities  with  emphatick  praise.  There  was 
a  peculiar  mildness  and  modesty  in  the  character  of  young 
AMES,  joined  to  a  vivacity  and  pleasantness,  that  endeared  him 
both  to  his  supcriours  and  equals. 

HE  was  a  favourite  in  a  society,  then  recently  formed  among 
the  students  for  improvement  in  elocution.  It  was  early  observ 
ed,  that  he  coveted  the  glory  of  eloquence.  In  his  declamation 
before  this  society  he  was  remarked  for  the  energy  and  pro 
priety,  with  which  he  delivered  such  specimens  of  impassioned 
oratory  as  his  genius  led  him  to  select.  As  a  task  or  voluntary 
trial  of  his  skill,  he  produced  occasionally  a  theme  or  oration, 
and  was  known  sometimes  to  invoke  the  muse  of  poetry, 
though  he  affected  then,  as  he  did  afterwards,  to  decline  the 
reputation  of  a  poetick  talent.  Probably  he  was  never  satisfied 
with  the  success  of  his  attempts  in  an  art,  in  which  want  of 
excellence  is  want  of  every  thing.  His  compositions  at  this 
time  bore  the  characteristick  stamp  which  has  always  marked 
his  speaking  and  writing.  They  were  sententious  and  full  of 
ornament. 

IT  is  especially  to  be  told,  that  the  morals  of  the  youngjcol- 
lejgi§Jl4>assjedjthe  ordeal  of  a  four__years  residence  at_the  uni 
versity  unhurt.  He  surmounted  the  temptations  to  vice, 


x  LIFE  OF  FISHER  AMES. 

of  New-England  offer  to  young  men  of  literary  education  and 
limited  means  of  support,  and  which  husJbeen  the  first  resort 
after  leaving  college  of  many  of  our  distinguished  men  in  all 
professions. 

THIS  period,  however,  which  engaged  his  services  to  the 
community,  was  not  lost  to  himself.  He  improved  his  leisure  by 
indulging  his  favourite  propensity  to  books.  During  this  time, 
as  he  frequently  said,  he  read  with  avidity  bordering  on  en- 
•  thusiasm  almost  every  author  within  his  reacliu^He  revised  the 
Latin  classicks,  which  he  had  studied  at  dbllege.  He  read 
works  illustrating  Greek  and  Roman  antiquities  and  the  my 
thology  of  the  ancients ;  natural  and  civil  history,  and  some  of 
the  best  novels.  Poetry  was  both  his  food  and  luxury.  He 
read  the  principal  English  poets,  and  became  familiar  with 
Milton  and  Shakespeare,  dwelt  on  their  beauties,  and  fixed 
V  passages  of  peculiar  excellence  on  his  memory.  He  had  a 
high  relish  of  the  works  of  Virgil,  and  at  this  time  could  re 
peat  considerable  portions  of  the  Eclogues  and  Georgics  and 
most  of  the  splendid  and  touching  passages  of  the  jEneid. 
This  multifarious,  though,  for  want  of  a  guide,  indiscriminate, 
and,  probably,  in  some  instances  ill-directed  reading  must  have 
contributed  to  extend  and  enrich  the  mind  of  the  young  stu 
dent.  It  helped  to  supply  that  fund  of  materials  for  speaking 
and  writing  which  he  possessed  in  singular  abundance ;  and 
hence  partly  he  derived  his  remarkable  fertility  of  allusion,  his 
ability  to  evolve  a  train  of  imagery  adapted  to  every  subject  of 
which  he  treated. 

MR.  AMES  was  a  student  at  law  in  the  office  of  William 
Tudor,  Esq.  of  Boston,  and  commenced  practice  at  Dedham 
in  the  autumn  of  the  year  1781.  He  had  already  begun  to 
show  the  "  publick  and  private  sense  of  a  man."  The  contest 
of  the  States  with  the  parent  country  awakened  in  him  a  lively 
interest.  He  espoused  their  cause)  and,  though  too  young  to 
take  an  active  part,  watched  its  progress  with  putriotick  con 
cern.  .  In  one  instance  he  was  selected  for  a  publick  trust, 
which  he  discharged  with  an  ability  beyond  his  years. 


LIFE  OF  FTSHER  AMES.  » 

THE  inconveniences  of  a  depreciated  paper  currency  pro 
ducing  general  discontent  and  in  some  cases  acts  of  violence) 
a  convention  of  delegates  from  every  part  of  the  state  assem 
bled  at  Concord  with  a  view  to  devise  a  remedy  for  the  evil. 
They  agreed  to  regulate  the  prices  of  articles  arbitrarily,  and 
adjourned  to  the  autumn.  At  the  adjourned  meeting  Mr. 
AMES  attended  by  delegation  from  his  town.  The  plan  adopt 
ed  at  the  prior  meeting  had  failed,  as  was  anticipated  by  the 
discerning,  though  it  was  still  an  object  with  many  to  continue 
the  experiment. 

MR.  AMES  displayed  the  subject  in  a  lucid  and  impressive 
speech,  shelving  the  futility  of  attempting  to  establish  by  power 
that  value  of  things,  which  depended  solely  on  consent ;  that 
the  embarrassment  was  inevitable,  and  that  it  must  be  met  by 
patriotism  and  patience,  and  not  by  attempting  to  do  what  was 
impossible  to  be  done. 

MR.  AMES  began  to  be  mentioned  as  a  pleader  of  uncommon 
eloquence,  when  his  appearance  as  an  essay-writer  contributed 
to  raise  and  extend  his  reputation.  The  government  of  the 
state  of  Massachusetts  was  administered  upon  the  principles 
of  justice,  which  required  that  it  should  enforce  the  payment 
of  private  debts,  and  that  publick  credit  should  be  supported. 
Various  causes  made  these  functions  of  the  government  dis 
tressing  or  inconvenient  to  many  of  the  people,  whose  discon 
tents  restless  intriguing  men  artfully  and  industriously  inflamed. 
The  spirit  of  licentiousness  broke  out  in  an  insurrection.  The 
revolutionary  fervour,  which  had  been  kindled  in  the  war  with 
Great  Britain,  seemed  to  threaten  with  destruction  our  own  con 
stitution  and  laws.  Liberty  was  confounded  with  license  ;  and 
those  who  could  not  be  governed  by  reason  appeared  to  claim 
a  right  not  to  be  governed  by  force. 

Lucius  JUNIUS  BRUTUS  wrote  to  animate  the  government 
to  decision  and  energy ;  and  when  the  insurrection  was  sup 
pressed,  CAMILLUS  explained  the  lessons  inculcated  by  the 
recent  dangers  and  escapes  of  the  country.  These  pieces 
were  pronounced  to  be  the  production  of  no  common  mind. 
It  was  the  light  of  genius  and  wisdom  darted  athwart  the 


xiv  LIFE  OF  FISHER  AMES. 

FROM  the  commencement  of  the  government  the  country- 
was  believed  to  be  deeply  interested  in  the  event  of  the  bill  for 
funding  the  publick  debt.  On  the  introduction  of  this  bill  the 
opposition  gained  vigour  by  the  junction  of  one  of  the  framers 
and  most  able  *  supporters  of  the  constitution,  who  from  this 
time  became  the  leader  of  the  discontented  party.  He  pro 
posed  to  fund  the  debt,  but  in  a  way  in  which  it  was  deem 
ed  impossible  it  should  be  funded.  His  proposal,  therefore,  was 
viewed  as  tending  to  defeat  the  object  which  it  professed 
to  favour.  At  every  stage  of  this  momentous  business  Mr. 
AMES  employed  his  resources  of  argument  and  eloquence,  till 
the  bill  was  passed  into  a  law. 

THE  famous  commercial  resolutions  of  Mr.  Madison,  found 
ed  on  a  report  of  the  secretary  of  state,  Mr.  Jefferson,  were  ap 
prehended  to  put  in  great  hazard  our  prosperity  and  indepen 
dence.  To  subserve  the  interests  .of  commerce  was  the  pre 
text;  objects  purely  political,  as  Mr.  AMES  thought,  were  the 
motives.  He  insisted,  that  commerce  could  not  be  served  by 
regulations,  which  should  oblige  us  to  "  sell  cheap  and  buy 
dear"  ;  and  he  inferred,  that  the  effect  of  the  resolutions  could 
only  be  to  gratify  partialities  and  resentments,  which  all  states- 
,men  should  discard. 

/4*  His  speech  on  the  appropriation  for  the  British  treaty  was 
an  era  of  his  political  life.  For  many  months  he  had  been  sink 
ing  under  weakness,  and  though  he  had  attended  the  long  and 
interesting  debate  on  this  question,  which  involved  the  consti 
tution  and  the  peace  of  the  United  States,  it  was  feared  he 
would  be  unable  to  speak.  But  when  the  time  came  for  tak 
ing  a  vote  so  big  with  consequences,  his  emotions  would  not 
suffer  him  to  be  silent.  His  appearance,  his  situation,  the  mag 
nitude  of  his  subject,  the  force  and  the  pathos  of  his  eloquence 
gave  this  speech  an  extraordinary  power  over  the  feelings  of 
the  dignified  and  numerous  assembly  who  heard  it.  When 
he  had  finished,  a  member  in  opposition  moved  to  postpone 
the  decision  on  the  question,  that  they  might  not  vote  under 

*  Mr.  Madison. 


LIFE  OF  FISHER  AMES.  xv 

the  influence  of  .a  sensibility,  which  their  calm  judgment 
might  condemn^ 

AT  the  close  of  the  session,  in  the  spring  of  1796,  Mr. 
AMES  travelled  into  Virginia  for  his  health.  He  thought  he 
derived  partial  benefit  from  drinking  of  the  warm  springs  in 
Berkley  county,  and  more  from  the  journey  and  unremitting 
attention  to  regimen.  In  this  visit  he  was  an  object  of  the 
most  friendly  and  respectful  attention,  individual  and  publick. 
He  found  many  friends  of  the  Washington  system  in  this 
state,  whose  representatives  had  taken  the  lead  in  opposition, 
observing  in  a  letter,  "  Virginia  has  been  misrepresented 
to  us,  as  much  as  the  measures  of  government  have  been  to 
them ;  and  good  men  are  no  where  generally  hostile  to  the 
federal  cause." 

AT  this  time  the  college  of  New-Jersey  expressed  their 
estimation  of  his  publick  character  by  conferring  on  him  the 
degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws. 

HE  gained  sufficient  health  to  be  able  to  attend  the  next 
session  of  congress,  and  to  enter  into  business,  though  not 
with  all  his  usual  spirit.  He  was  chairman  of  the  committee, 
which  reported  the  answer  to  the  president's  speech.  This 
answer  contained  a  most  affectionate  and  respectful  notice  of 
the  president's  declaration,  that  he  now  stood  for  the  last  time 
in  their  presence.  In  conclusion  it  said  :  "for  your  country's 
sake,  for  the  sake  of  republican  liberty  it  is  our  earnest  wish, 
that  your  example  may  be  the  guide  of  your  successors,  and 
thus,  after  being  the  ornament  and  safeguard  of  the  present 
age,  become  the  patrimony  of  our  descendants."  In  the 
debate  on  this  answer  he  vindicated,  with  his  accustomed 
openness  and  ability,  the  claim  of  Washington  to  the  unquali 
fied  love  and  gratitude  of  the  nation. 

THE  session  being  terminated,  Mr.  AMES,  who  had  previ 
ously  declined  another  election,  became  a  private  citizen.  He 
retired  to  his  favourite  residence  at  Dedham,  to  enjoy  repose 
in  the  bosom  of  his  family,  and  to  unite  with  his  practice  as  a 
lawyer,  those  rural  occupations  in  which  he  delighted.  He 
applied  to  the  management  of  his  farm  and  fruitery  a  portion 


xviii  LIFE  OF  FISHER  AMES. 

clanger  to  the  liberty  of  the  world.  The  partiality  to  France 
in  the  national  feelings  of  Americans  he  regarded  as  having  a 
tendency  at  all  times  to  corrupt  and  pervert  American  poli 
ticks.  Nothing  can  exceed  the  interest  with  which  he  watch 
ed  the  efforts  of  Great  Britain  against  the  all-conquering  and 
eccentrick  ambition  of  France  ;  not  only  because  he  was  just  to 
the  British  nation  and  character ;  but  because  he  saw,  that  all 
our  hopes  of  independence  were  staked  upon  the  issue. 

ON  all  these  subjects  Mr.  AMES  was  awake,  while  many 
others  slept.  What  they  saw  obscurely,  he  saw  clearly.  What 
to  them  was  distant  affected  him  as  near.  The  admission  of 
danger  implies  duty  ;  and  many  refuse  to  be  alarmed,  because 
they  wish  to  be  at  ease.  The  despondent  think  nothing  can 
be  done  ;  the  presumptuous  nothing  need  be  done.  Consider 
ing  these  facts  and  opinions,  Mr.  AMES'S  writings  will  be 
acknowledged  to  have  produced  much  effect. 

IN  the  year  1804,  Mr.  AMES  was  chosen  president  of  Har 
vard  College.  His  health  would  not  have  allowed  him  to  ac 
cept  the  place,  had  other  reasons  permitted.  Though  greatly 
interested  in  the  education  of  the  young,  he  did  not  think  his 
habits  adapted  to  the  office,  and  therefore  declined  the  honour. 

FROM  1795  his  health  continued  to  decline,  with  partial  and 
flattering  intermissions,  until  his  death.  He  was  a  striking  ex 
ample  of  magnanimity  and  patience  under  suffering.  Retain 
ing  always  the  vigour  and  serenity  of  his  mind,  he  appeared 
to  make  those  reflections  which  became  his  situation.  When 
speaking  of  his  first  attack,  he  observes,  "  I  trust  I  realise  the 
value  of  those  habits  of  thinking,  which  1  have  cherished  for 
some  time.  Sickness  is  not  wholly  useless  to  me.  It  has  in 
creased  the  warmth  of  my  affection  to  my  friends.  It  has 
taught  me  to  make  haste  in  forming  the  plan  of  my  life,  if  it 
should  be  spared,  more  for  private  duties  and  social  enjoy 
ments,  and  less  for  the  splendid  emptiness  of  publick  station, 
than  yet  I  have  done." 

AT  length  after  an  extreme  debility  for  two  years,  the  frame 
which  had  so  long  tottered  was  about  to  fall.  With  composure 
and  dignity  he  saw  the  approach  of  his  dissolution.  He  had 


LIFE  OP  FISHER  AMES.  xix 

many  reasons  for  wishing  to  live.  The  summons  came  to 
demand  of  his  noon  of  life  the  residue  of  a  day  which  had  been 
bright  and  fair  ;  of  his  love  of  fame  the  reiioqubhment  of  all 
that  respect  and  honour,  which  the  world  solicited  him  to  re 
ceive  ;  of  his  patriotism  the  termination  of  all  his  cares  and 
labours  for  a  country,  which  he  loved  with  inextinguishable 
ardour;  of  his  conjugal  affection  a  separation  from  an  object 
inexpressibly  dear  ;  of  his  parental  tenderness  the  surrender 
of  his  children  to  the  chances  and  vicissitudes  of  life  without 
his  counsel  and  care. 

BUT  these  views  of  his  condition  did  not  sink  his  heart, 
which  was  sustained  by  pious  confidence  and  hope.  He  ap 
peared  no\v  what  he  always  was,  and  rose  in  virtues  in  propor 
tion  to  his  trial,  expressing  the  tenderest  concern  for  those 
whom  he  should  leave,  and  embracing  in  his  solicitude  his 
country  and  mankind.  He  expired  on  the  morning  of  the 
fourth  of  July,  1808.  When  the  intelligence  reached  Boston, 
a  meeting  of  citizens  was  held  with  a  view  to  testify  their  re 
spect  for  his  character  and  services.  In  compliance  with 
their  request  his  remains  were  brought  to  the  capital  for  in 
terment,  at  which  a  eulogy  was  pronounced  by  his  early 
friend  Mr.  Dexter,  and  every  mark  of  respectful  notice  was 
paid. 

FUNERAL  honours  to  publick  characters,  being  customary 
offices  of  decorum  and  propriety,  are  necessarily  equivocal 
testimonies  of  esteem.  But  Mr.  AMES  was  a  private  man, 
who  was  honoured  because  he  was  lamented.  He  was  followed 
to  the  grave  by  a  longer  procession  than  has  perhaps  appeared 
on  any  similar  occasion.  It  was  a  great  assemblage,  drawn  by 
gratitude  and  admiration  around  the  bier  of  one  exalted  in 
their  esteem  by  his  pre-eminent  gifts,  and  endeared  to  their 
hearts  by  the  surpassing  loveliness  of  his  disposition. 

HAVING  taken  notice  of  the  history  of  Mr.  AMES,  we  are 
required  to  present  some  additional  views  of  his  talents,  opin 
ions,  and  character.  The  reader  of  his  works  will,  no  doubt, 
concur  with  those  who  knew  him  and  who  heard  him  in  pub- 
lick  and  private,  in  saying,  that  he  had  a  mind  of  high  order, 


xx  LIFE  OF  FISHER  AMES. 

in  some  particulars  of  the  highest,  and  that  he  has  a  just  claim 
to  be  classed  with  the  men  of  genius,  that  quality  which  it  ijp£ 
so  much  more  easy  to  discern  than  to  define  ;  "  that  quality, 
without  which  judgment  is  cold  and  knowledge  inert;  that   V 
energy,  which  collects,  combines,  amplifies,  and  animates." 
We  observe  in  Mr.  AMES  a  liberal  portion  of  all  the  faculties 
and  qualities  that  enter  into  this  character,  understanding,  me 
mory,  imagination,  invention,  sensibility,  ardour.  "/ 

As  a  speaker  and  as  a  writer  he  had  the  power  to  enlighten 
and  persuade,  to  move4,  to  please,  to  charm,  to  astonish,  fte 
united  those  decorations  that  belong  to  fine  talents  to  that  pen 
etration  and  judgment  that  designate  an  acute  and  solid  mind. 
Many  of  his  opinions  have  the  authority  of  predictions  fulfilled 
and  fulfilling.  He  had  the  ability  of  investigation,  and,  where 
it  was  necessary,  did  investigate  with  patient  attention,  going 
through  a  series  of  observation  and  deduction,  and  tracing  the 
links  which  connect  one  truth  with  another.  When  the  result 
of  his  researches  was  exhibited  in  discourse,  the  steps  of  a 
logical  process  were  in  some  measure  concealed  by  the  colour 
ing  of  rhetorick.  Minute  calculations  and  dry  details  were 
employments,  however,  the  least  adapted  to  his  peculiar  con 
struction  of  mind.  It  was  easy  and  delightful  for  him  to  illus 
trate  by  a  picture,  but  painful  and  laborious  to  prove  by  a  dia 
gram.  It  was  the  prerogative  of  his  mind  to  discern  by  a  glance, 
so  rapid  as  to  seem  intuition,  those  truths  which  common  ca 
pacities  struggle  hard  to  apprehend  ;  and  it  was  the  part  of  his^ 
eloquence  to  display,  expand,  and  enforce  them. 

His  imagination  was  a  distinguishing  feature  of  his  mind.  /. 
Prolific,  grand,  sportive,  original,  it  gave  him  the  command 
of  nature  and  art,  and  enabled  him  to  vary  the  disposition  and 
the  dress  of  his.  ideas  without  end.  Now  it  assembled  most 
pleasing  images,  adorned  with  all  that  is  soft  and  beautiful ;  and 
now  rose  in  the  storm,  wielding  the  elements  and  flashing  with 
the  most  awful  splendours. 

VERY  few  men  have  produced  more  original  combinations. 
He  presented  resemblances  and   contrasts  which  none  saw 


LIFE  OF  FISHER  AMES.  xxi 

before,  but  all  admitted  to  be  just  and  striking.   In  delicate  and    ^ 
powerful  wit  he  was  pre-eminent. 

THE  exercise  of  these  talents  and  accomplishments  was 
guided  and  exalted  by  a  sublime  morality  and  the  spirit  of  ra 
tional  piety,  was  modelled  by  much  good  taste,  and  prompted 
by  an  ardent  heart. 

MR.  AMES  was  more  adapted  to  the  senate  than  the  bar. 
His  speeches  in  congress,  always  respectable,  were  many  of 
them  excellent,  abounding  in  argument  and  sentiment,  hav 
ing  all  the  necessary  information,  embellished  with  rhetorical 
beauties  and  animated  with  patriotick  fires. 

So  much  of  the  skill  and  address  of  the  orator  do  they  ex 
hibit,  that,  though  he  had  little  regard  to  the  rules  of  the  art, 
they  are  perhaps  fair  examples  of  the  leading  precepts  for  the 
several  parts  of  an  oration.  In  debates  on  important  questions 
he  generally  waited  before  he  spoke,  till  the  discussion  had  pro 
ceeded  at  some  length,  when  he  was  sure  to  notice  every  ar 
gument  that  had  been  offered.  He  was  sometimes  in  a  mino 
rity,  when  he  well  considered  the  temper  of  a  majority  in  a 
republican  assembly,  impatient  of  contradiction,  refutation,  or 
detection,  claiming  to  be  allowed  sincere  in  their  convictions, 
and  disinterested  in  their  views.  He  was  not  unsuccessful  in 

* 

uniting  the  prudence  and  conciliation  necessary  in  parliamen 
tary  speaking,  with  lawful  freedom  of  debate  and  an  effectual 
use  of  those  sharp  and  massy  weapons  which  his  talents 
supplied,  and  which  his  frankness  and  zeal  prompted  him  to 
employ. 

HE  did  not  systematically  study  the  exterior  graces  of  speak 
ing,  but  his  attitude  was  erect  and    easy,   his  gestures  manly 
and  forcible,  his  intonations  varied  and  expressive,  his  articu 
lation  distinct,  and  his  whole  manner  animated  and  natural.  His^k 
written  compositions,  it  will  be  perceived,  have  that  glow  and  * 
vivacity  which  belonged  to  his  speeches. 

ALL  the  other  efforts  of  his  mind,  however,  were  probably 
exceeded  by  his  powers  in  conversation.  He  appeared  among 
his  friends  with  an  illuminated  face,  and  with  peculiar  amenity 
and  captivating  kindness  displayed  all  the  playful  felicity  of  his 


xxii  LIFE  OF  FISHER  AMES. 

wit,  the  force  of  his  intellect,  and  the  fertility  of  his  imagina 
tion. 

ON  the  kind  or  degree  of  excellence  which  criticism  may 
concede  or  deny  to  Mr.  AMES'S  productions,  we  do  not  under 
take  with  accurate  discrimination  to  determine.  He  was  un 
doubtedly  rather  actuated  by  the  genius  of  oratory,  than  disci 
plined  by  the  precepts  of  rhetorick ;  was  more  intent  on 
exciting  attention  and  interest  and  producing  effect,  than 
securing  the  praise  of  skill  in  the  artifice  of  composition. 
Hence  criticks  might  be  dissatisfied,  yet  hearers  charmed. 
The  abundance  of  materials,  the  energy  and  quickness  of  con 
ception,  the  inexhaustible  fertility  of  mind,  which  he  possessed, 
as  they  did  not  require,  so  they  forbade  a  rigid  adherence  to 
artificial  guides  in  the  disposition  and  employment  of  his  in 
tellectual  stores.  To  a  certain  extent,  such  a  speaker  and 
writer  may  claim  to  be  his  own  authority. 

IMAGE  crouded  upon  image  in  his  mind,  he  is  not  charge 
able  with  affectation  in  the  use  of  figurative  language  ;  his 
tropes  are  evidently  prompted  by  imagination,  and  not  forced 
into  his  service.  Their  novelty  and  variety  create  constant 
surprise  and  delight.  But  they  are,  perhaps,  too  lavishly  em 
ployed.  The  fancy  of  his  hearers  is  sometimes  overplied  with 
stimulus,  and  the  importance  of  the  thought  liable  to  be  con 
cealed  in  the  multitude  and  beauty  of  the  metaphors.  His 
condensation  of  expression  may  be  thought  to  produce  occa 
sional  abruptness.  He  aimed  rather  at  the  terseness,  strength, 
and  vivacity  of  the  short  sentence,  than  the  dignity  of  the  full  ^ 
and  flowing  period.  His  style  is  conspicuous  for  sententious 
brevity,  for  antithesis  and  point.  Single  ideas  appear  with 
so  much  lustre  and  prominence,  that  the  connection  of  the 
several  parts  of  his  discourse  is  not  always  obvious  to  the  com 
mon  mind,  and  the  aggregate  impression  of  the  composition 
is  not  always  completely  obtained.  In  those  respects  where  his 
peculiar  excellencies  came  near  to  defects,  he  is  rather  to  be 
admired  than  imitated. 

MR.  AMES,  though  trusting  much  to  his  native  resources, 
did  by  no  means  neglect  to  apply  the  labours  of  others  to  his 


LIFE  OF  FISHER  AMES.  xxiii 

own  use.     His  early  love  of  books  has  been  mentioned  ;   and 
he   retained  and  cherished  the  same   propensity  through  his 
whole  life.  He  was  particularly  fond  of  ethical  studies  ;  but  he 
went  more  deeply  into  history,  than  any  other  branch  of  learn 
ing.    Here  he  sought  the  principles  of  legislation,  the  science 
of  politicks,  the  causes  of  the  rise  and  decline  of  nations,  and 
the  character  and  passions  of  men  acting  in  publick  affairs.  He  i 
read  Herodotus,  Thucyclides,  Livy,  Tacitus,  Plutarch,  and  the  j 
modern  historians  of  Greece  and  Rome.    The  English  history  * 
he  studied  with  much  care.    Hence  he  possessed  a  great  fund 
of  historical  knowledge  always  at  command  both  for  conversa 
tion  and  writing.     He  contemplated  the  character  of  Cicero  as 
an  orator  and  statesman  with  fervent  admiration. 

HE  never  ceased  to  be  a  lover  of  the  poets.  Homer,  in  Pope, 
he  often  perused  ;  and  read  Virgil  in  the  original  within  two 
years  of  his  death  with  increased  delight.  His  knowledge  of 
the  French  enabled  him  to  read  their  authors,  though  not  to 
speak  their  language.  He  was  accustomed  to  read  the  scrip 
tures,  not  only  as  containing  a  system  of  truth  and  duty,  but  as 
displaying  in  their  poetical  parts,  all  that  is  sublime,  animated, 
and  affecting  in  composition.  His  learning  seldom  appeared 
as  such,  but  was  interwoven  with  his  thoughts  and  became 
his  own. 

IN  publick  speaking  he  trusted  much  to  excitement,  and  did 
little  more  in  his  closet  than  draw  the  outlines  of  his  speech 
and  reflect  on  it,  till  he  had  received  deeply  the  impressions 
he  intended  to  make  ;  depending  for  the  turns  and  figures  of 
language,  illustrations  and  modes  of  appeal  to  the  passions,  on 
his  imagination  and  feelings  at  the  time.  This  excitement 
continued,  when  the  cause  had  ceased  to  operate.  After  debate 
his  mind  was  agitated,  like  the  ocean  after  a  storm,  and  his 
nerves  were  like  the  shrouds  of  a  ship,  torn  by  the  tempest. 

HE   brought  his  mind  much  in  contact  with  the  minds  of  ' 
others,  ever  pleased  to  converse  on  subjects  of  publick  interest, 
and  seizing  every  hint  that  might  be  useful  to  him  in  writing 
for  the  instruction  of  his  fellow-citizens.     He  justly  thought, 
that  persons  below  him  in  capacity  might  have  good  ideas. 


xxiv  LIFE  OF  FISHER  AMES. 

which  he  might  employ  in  the  correction  and  improvement  of 
his  own.  His  attention  was  always  awake  to  grasp  the  materials 
that  came  to  him  from  every  source.  A  constant  labour  was 
going  on  in  his  mind. 

HE  never  sunk  from  an  elevated  tone  of  thought  and  action, 
nor  suffered  his  faculties  to  slumber  in  indolence.  The  circum 
stances  of  the  times,  in  which  he  was  called  to  act,  contributed 
to  elicit  his  powers,  and  supply  fuel  to  his  genius.  The  great 
est  interests  were  subjects  of  debate.  When  he  was  in  the 
national  legislature,  the  spirit  of  party  did  not  tie  the  hands  of 
the  publick  functionaries ;  and  questions,  on  which  depended  the 
peace  or  war,  the  safety  or  danger,  the  freedom  or  dishonour 
of  the  country^  might  be  greatly  influenced  by  the  counsels  and 
efforts  of  a  single  patriot. 

THE  political  principles  and  opinions  of  Mr.  AMES  are  not 
difficult  to  be  understood,  and  should  be  attentively  regarded 
by  those  who  will  estimate  the  merit  of  his  labours.  Mr. 
AMES  was  emphatically  a  republican.  He  saw,  that  many  per 
sons  confounded  a  republick  with  a  democracy.  He  con 
sidered  them  as  essentially  distinct  and  really  opposite.  Accord 
ing  to  his  creed,  a  republick  is  that  structure  of  an  elective 
government,  in  which  the  administration  necessarily  prescribe 
to  themselves  the  general  good  as  the  object  of  all  their  mea 
sures  ;  a  democracy  is  that,  in  which  the  present  popular  pas 
sions,  independent  of  the  publick  good,  become  a  guide  to 
the  rulers.  In  the  first,  the  reason  and  interests  of  the  society 
govern  ;  in  the  second,  their  prejudices  and  passions.  The 
frame  of  the  American  constitution  supposes  the  dangers  of 
democracy.  The  division  of  the  legislature  into  two  branches 
and  their  diverse  origin,  the  long  duration  of  office  in  one 
branch,  the  distinct  power  of  the  executive,  the  independence 
and  permanency  of  the  judiciary  are  designed  to  balance  and 
check  the  democratick  tendencies  of  our  polity.  They  are 
contrivances  and  devices  voluntarily  adopted  by  the  people  to 
restrain  themselves  from  obstructing,  by  their  own  mistakes  or 
perversity,  the  attainment  of  the  publick  welfare.  They  arc 
professed  means  of  insuring  to  the  nation  rulers,  who  will  pre- 


LIFE  OF  FISHER  AME§.  xxv 

fer  the  durable  good  of  the  whole  to  the  transient  advantage 
of  the  whole  or  a  part.  When  these  provisions  become  inef 
fectual,  and  the  legislator,  the  executive  magistrate,  and  the 
judge  become  the  instruments  of  the  passions  of  the  people,  or 
of  the  governing  majority,  the  government,  whatever  may  be 
its  form,  is  a  democracy,  and  the  publick  liberty  is  no  longer 
safe.  True  republican  rulers  are  bound  to  act,  not  simply  as 
those  who  appoint  them  would)  but,  as  they  ought ;  democrat- 
ick  leaders  will  act  in  subordination  to  those  very  passions 
which  it  is  the  object  of  government  to  control ;  but  as  thefeffect 
of  this  subserviency  is  to  procure  them  unlimited  confidence 
and  devotedness,  the  powers  of  society  become  concentrated  in 
their  hands.  Then  it  is,  that  men,  not  laws,  govern.  Nothing 
cau  be  more  inconsistent  with  the  real  liberty  of  the  people, 
than  the  power  of  the  democracy  thus  brought  into  action. 
For  in  this  case  the  government  is  a  despotism  beyond  rule, 
not  a  republick  confined  to  rule.  It  is  strong,  but  its  strength 
is  of  a  terrible  sort ;  strong  to  oppress,  not  to  protect ;  not 
strong  to  maintain  liberty,  property,  and  right,  it  cannot  secure 
justice  nor  make  innocence  safe. 

MR.  AMES  apprehended,  that  our  government  had  been 
sliding  down  from  a  true  republick  towards  the  abyss  of  demo 
cracy  ;  and  that  the  ambition  of  demagogues  operating  on 
personal,  party,  and  local  passions,  was  attaining  its  objects. 
"  A  quack  doctor,  a  bankrupt  attorney,  and  a  renegade  from 
England,  by  leading  the  mobs  of  three  cities,  become  worth  a 
national  bribe  ;  and  after  receiving  it,  they  are  not  the  servants 
but  the  betrayers  of  the  state."  The  only  resource  against  this 
degeneracy  of  our  affairs  and  their  final  catastrophe  Mr.  AMES 
considered  to  be  "  the  correctness  of  the  publick  opinion,  and 
the  energy  that  is  to  maintain  it."  Hence  his  zeal  to  support 
the  federal  administration  in  the  constitutional  exercise  of  its 
powers,  and  his  fervid  appeals  to  enlighten,  animate,  and  com 
bine  the  friends  of  republican  liberty.  Hence  the  stress  he 
laid  on  the  principles,  habits,  and  institutions  that  pertain  to 
the  New-England  state  of  society.  "  Constitutions,"  said  he, 
"  are  but  paper ;  society  is  the  substratum  of  government. 

B 


xxviii  LIFE  OF  FISHER  AMES. 

men,  whose  virtues  and  characters  are  opened  and  coloured 
by  the  sympathy  of  united  efforts,  is  no  mean  compensation." 
His  health  and  perhaps  his  life  were  the  costly  oblations  which 
he  laid  on  the  altar  of  patriotism.  The  fine  machinery  of  his 
system  could  ill  withstand  the  excitement  produced  by  publick 
speaking  and  his  keen  interest  in  pubiick  affairs. 

IT  is  happy  for  mankind,  when  those  who  engage  admira 
tion  deserve  esteem  ;  for  vice  and  folly  derive  a  pernicious  in 
fluence  from  an  alliance  with  qualities  that  naturally  command 
applause.  In  the  character  of  Mr.  AMES  the  circle  of  the 
virtues  seemed  to  be  complete,  and  each  virtue  in  its  proper 
place. 

THE  objects  of  religion  presented  themselves  with  a  strong 
interest  to  his  mind.  The  relation  of  the  world  to  its  author, 
and  of  this  life  to  a  retributory  scene  in  another,  could  not  be 
contemplated  by  him  without  the  greatest  solemnity.  The 
religious  sense  was,  in  his  view,  essential  in  the  constitution  of 
man.  He  placed  a  full  reliance  on  the  divine  origin  of  chris- 
uuiuty.  If  there  was  ever  a  time  in  his  life,  when  the  light  of 
revelation  shone  dimly  upon  his  understanding,  he  did  not 
rashly  close  his  mind  against  clearer  vision,  for  he  was  more 
fearful  of  mistakes  to  the  disadvantage  of  a  system,  which  he 
saw  to  be  excellent  and  benign,  than  of  prepossessions  in  its 
favour.  He  felt  it  his  duty  and  interest  to  inquire,  and  discov 
ered  on  the  side  of  faith  a  fulness  of  evidence  little  short  of  de 
monstration.  At  about  thirty  five  he  made  a  publick  profession  of 
his  belief  in  the  Christian  religion,  and  was  a  regular  attendant  on 
its  services.  In  regard  to  articles  of  belief,  his  conviction  was 
confined  to  those  leading  principles,  about  which  Christians 
have  little  diversity  of  opinion.  Subtle  questions  of  theology, 
from  various  causes  often  agitated,  but  never  determined,  he 
neither  pretended  nor  desired  to  investigate,  satisfied  that  they 
related  to  points  uncertain  or  unimportant.  He  loved  to  view 
religion  on  the  practical  side,  as  designed  to  operate  by  a  few 
simple  and  grand  truths  on  the  affections,  actions,  and  habits 
of  men.  He  cherished  the  sentiment  and  experience  of  reli 
gion,  careful  to  ascertain  the  genuineness  and  value  of  impres- 


LIFE  OF  FISHER  AMES.  xxix 

vions  and  feelings  by  their  moral  tendency.  He  insisted 
much  on  the  distinction  between  the  real  and  lively,  but  gen 
tle  and  unaffected  emotions  of  a  pious  mind,  naturally  passing 
into  the  life,  and  that  "  morbid  fanaticism,"  which  consists  in 
inexplicable  sensations,  internal  acts,  and  artificial  raptures, 
that  have  no  good  aspect  upon  religious  obedience.  In  esti 
mating  a  sect  he  regarded  more  its  temper  than  its  tenets  ;  he 
treated  the  conscientious  opinions  and  phraseology  of  others 
on  sacred  subjects  with  tenderness,  and  approached  all  ques 
tions  concerning  divine  revelation  with  modesty  and  awe.  His 
prudence  and  moderation  in  these  particulars  may,  possibly, 
have  been  misconstrued  into  an  assent  to  propositions,  which 
he  meant  merely  not  to  deny,  or  an  adoption  of  opinions  or 
language,  which  he  chose  merely  not  to  condemn.  He  of  all 
men  was  the  last  to  countenance  exclusive  claims  to  purity  of 
faith,  founded  on  a  zeal  for  peculiar  dogmas,  which  multitudes 
of  good  men,  approved  friends  of  truth,  utterly  reject.  He  was 
no  enemy  to  improvement,  to  fair  inquiry,  and  Christian  free 
dom  ;  but  innovations  in  the  modes  of  worship  and  instruc 
tion,  without  palpable  necessity  or  advantage,  he  discouraged,  as 
tending  to  break  the  salutary  associations  of  the  pious  mind. 
His  conversation  and  behaviour  evinced  the  sincerity  of  his 
religious  impressions.  No  levity  upon  these  subjects  ever 
escaped  his  lips ;  but  his  manner  of  recurring  to  them  in  con 
versation  indicated  reverence  and  feeling.  The  sublime,  the 
affecting  character  of  Christ  he  never  mentioned  without 
emotion. 

MR.  AMES  was  married  July  15th,  1792,  to  Frances,  third 
daughter  of  John  Worthington,  Esq.  of  Springfield.  He  left 
seven  children,  six  of  whom  are  sons  ;  the  eldest  fifteen  years 
old.  He  was  gratefully  sensible  of  the  peculiar  felicity  of  his 
domestick  life.  In  his  beloved  home  his  sickness  found  all 
the  alleviation,  that  a  judicious  and  unwearied  tenderness  could 
minister;  and  his  intervals  of  health  a  succession  of  every 
pleasing  engagement  and  heartfelt  satisfaction.  The  com 
placency  of  his  looks,  the  sweetness  of  his  tones,  his  mild  and 
often  playful  manner  of  imparting  instruction,  evinced  his  ex- 


xxx  LIFE  OP  FISHElt  AMES. 

treme  delight  in  the  society  of  his  family,  who  felt  that  they 
derived  from  him  their  chief  happiness,  and  found  in  his  con 
versation  and  example  a  constant  excitement  to  noble  and  vir 
tuous  conduct.  As  a  husband  and  father,  he  was  all  that  is 
provident,  kind,  and  exemplary.  He  was  riveted  in  the  re 
gards  of  those  who  were  in  his  service.  He  felt  all  the  ties 
of  kindred.  The  delicacy,  the  ardour,  and  constancy,  with 
which  he  cherished  his  friends,  his  readiness  to  the  offices  of 
good  neighbourhood,  and  his  propensity  to  contrive  and  exe 
cute  plans  of  publick  improvement,  formed  traits  in  his  char 
acter,  each  of  remarkable  strength.  He  cultivated  friend 
ship  by  an  active  and  punctual  correspondence,  which  made 
the  number  of  his  letters  very  great,  and  which  are  not  less  ex 
cellent  than  numerous. 

WHEN  he  emerged  from  comparative  obscurity  to  fill  a  large 
space  in  the  eyes  of  the  pubiick,  he  lost  none  of  the  simplicity  of 
character  and  modesty  of  deportment  which  he  had  before  dis^' 
played,  and  neglected  none  of  the  friends  of  his  youth.  He  never 
yielded  to  that  aversion  to  the  necessary  cares  of  life,  which 
men,  accustomed  to  high  concerns,  or  fond  of  letters,  some 
times  improvidently  indulge.  Without  any  particle  of  avarice, 
he  was  strictly  economical. 

HE  had  no  envy,  for  he  felt  no  personal  rivalry.  His  ambi 
tion  was  of  that  purified  sort,  which  is  rather  the  desire  of 
excellence  than  the  reputation  of  it :  he  aimed  more  at  desert, 
than  at  superiority.  He  loved  to  bestow  praise  on  those  who 
were  competitors  for  the  same  kind  of  publick  considera 
tion  as  himself,  not  fearing  that  he  should  sink  by  their  eleva 
tion. 

HE  was  tenacious  of  his  rights,  but  scrupulous  in  his  re 
spect  to  the  rights  of  others.  The  obloquy  of  political  oppo 
nents,  was  sometimes  the  price  he  paid  for  not  deserving  it. 
But  it  could  hardly  give  him  pain,  for  he  had  no  vulnerable 
points  in  his  character.  He  had  a  perfect  command  of  his 
temper  ;  his  anger  never  proceeded  to  passion,  nor  his  sense 
of  injury  to  revenge.  If  there  was  occasional  asperity  in  his 
language,  it  was  easy  to  see  there  was  no  malignity  in  his  dis- 


LIFE  OF  FISHER  AMES.  xxxi 

position.  He  tasted  the  good  of  his  existence  with,  cheerful 
gratitude  ;  how  he  received  its  evil  has  been  already  intimated. 

His  fears  concerning  publick  affairs  did  not  so  much  depress 
his  spirits,  as  awaken  his  activity  to  prevent  or  mitigate,  by  his 
warnings  and  counsels,  the  disorder  of  the  state.  He  was 
deeply  anxious  for  the  fortunes  of  his  country,  but  more  intent 
on  rendering  it  all  the  service  in  his  power  ;  convinced  that, 
however  uncertain  may  be  the  events  of  the  future,  the  present 
duty  is  never  performed  in  vain. 

MR.  AMES  in  person  a  little  exceeded  the  middle  height, 
was  well  proportioned,  and  remarkably  erect.  His  features 
were  regular,  his  aspect  respectable  and  pleasing,  his  eye  ex 
pressive  of  benignity  and  intelligence.  His  head  and  face  are 
shown  with  great  perfection  in  the  engraving  prefixed  to  his 
works.  In  his  manners  he  was  easy,  affable,  cordial,  inviting 
confidence,  yet  inspiring  respect.  He  had  that  refined  spirit 
of  society,  which  observes  the  forms  of  a  real,  but  not  studied 
politeness,  and  paid  a  most  delicate  regard  to  the  propriety  of 
conversation  and  behaviour. 

IN  faint  lines  we  have  sketched  the  character  of  this  man  of 
worth.  If  the  reader  ask,  why  he  is  represented  without  ble 
mishes,  the  answer  is,  that,  though  as  a  man  he  undoubtedly 
had  faults,  yet  they  were  so  few,  so  trivial,  or  so  lost  among  his 
virtues,  as  not  to  be  observed,  or  not  to  be  remembered. 


WORKS 


OF 


FISHER  AMES. 


PREFACE. 


OOME  apology  might  be  necessary  for  a  portion  of 
the  following  work,  if  the  numerous  friends  and  admirers  of 
its  author  had  not  demanded  its  publication.  They  had  long 
desired  to  possess,  in  a  decent  and  durable  form,  some  of 
those  brilliant  and  profound  thoughts  with  which  they  had 
often  been  delighted  and  instructed.  A  republication  of  news 
paper  essays  is  not  generally  entitled  to  extensive  publick 
patronage,  but  the  writings  of  Mr.  AMES  are  believed  to  be 
among  the  exceptions  to  this  remark.  His  ardent  and  unre- 
mitted  zeal  for  the  welfare  of  his  country  induced  him  at  all 
times  to  prefer  the  interest  of  that  country  to  his  own  fame  ; 
and  that  genius,  which  might  have  immortalized  his  name 
by  another  direction  of  its  powers,  was  confined  to  the  humble 
but,  perhaps,  more  useful  office  of  teaching  his  fellow  citi 
zens,  in  the  perishable  journals  of  the  day,  the  nature  of 
liberty  and  the  danger  of  its  loss.  Some  of  those  who  had 
been  charmed  with  his  eloquence  proposed,  in  his  lifetime, 
to  separate  the  productions  of  his  pen  from  the  less  interesting 
matter  with  which  they  were  connected ;  his  delicacy  forbade 
them  to  proceed ;  but  the  deep  and  spontaneous  expression 
of  the  publick  grief  at  his  death  gave  new  life  to  the  propo 
sal  which  is  now  carried  into  effect. 


PREFACE. 

IN  making  a  selection  from  the  great  mass  of  his  works, 
the  aim  has  been  to  furnish  a  fair  specimen  of  the  talents  and 
sentiments  of  the  author,  to  prefer  such  pieces  as  are  of  the 
most  general  nature,  to  exclude  offensive  personal  allusions, 
except  when  the  names  of  persons  seem  to  be  inseparable  from 
the  subject,  and  to  avoid  repetitions.  It  will  be  perceived,  that 
the  essays  and  speeches  to  the  3 78th  page,  inclusively,  are  a 
republication  from  newspapers  and  pamphlets,  and  that  the 
writings  from  thence  to  the  end  of  the  volume,  are  now  for 
the  first  time  published, 


CONTENTS. 


Lucius  Junius  Brutus Page       1 

Camillus.     No.  1 8 

Camillus.     No.  II 12 

Camillus.     No.  Ill 16 

Speech  in  the  Convention  of  Massachusetts  on  Biennial  Elections     20 

Speech  on  Mr.  Madison's  Resolutions 26 

Speech  on  the  British  Treaty 58 

Laocoon.     No.  1 94 

Laocoon.     No.  II 103 

Eulogy  on  Washington , 115 

School  Books 134 

Falkland.     No.  1 136 

Falkland.     No.  II 139 

Falkland.     No.  Ill 144 

Falkland.     No.  IV 150 

The  Observer 154 

Sketches  of  the  State  of  Europe.     No.  1 156 

Sketches  of  the  State  of  Europe.     No.  II 159 

Phocion.     No.  I.    On  British  Influence 166 

Phocion.     No.   II.   On  British  Influence 170 

Phocion.     No.  III. .  On  British  Influence 173 

Phocion.     No.  IV.    On  British  Influence 176 

Phocion.     No.  V.    On  British  Influence 180 

Phocion.     No.  VI.    On  French  Influence 184 

The  new  Romans.     No.  1 188 

The  new  Romans.     No.  II 191 

The  new  Romans.     No.  Ill 195 

The  new  Romans.     No.  IV 198 

The  new  Romans.     No.  V 203 

Russia 208 

Foreign  Politicks.     No.  1 209 

Foreign  Politicks.     No.  II 212 

Foreign  Politicks.    No.  Ill 216 

Hercules   222 

No  Revolutionist  .  . . , ." . .  226 


CONTENTS. 

Equality.     No.  1 230 

Equality.     No.  II , 232 

Equality.     No.  Ill 235 

Equality.     No.  IV 239 

Equality.     No.  V 243 

Equality.     No.  VI 246 

"  History  is  Philosophy  teaching  by  Example" 252 

Balance  of  Europe 255 

Political  Review.     No.  1 262 

Political  Review.     No.  II. 265 

Political  Review.     No.  Ill 268 

Monitor 272 

Republican.    No.  I , 276 

Republican.    No.  II 278 

Sketch  of  the  Character  of  Alexander  Hamilton 282 

Reflections  on  the  War  in  Europe 291 

Character  of  Brutus 298 

On  the  Prospect  of  a  New  Coalition  against  France 302 

The  Combined  Powers  and  France 307 

The  Successes  of  Buonaparte 314 

Dangerous  Power  of  France.     No.  I. 317 

Dangerous  Power  of  France.    No.  II 323 

Dangerous  Power  of  France.     No.  Ill .  335 

Non- Intercourse  Act 344 

Lessons  from  History.    No.  I 347 

Lessons  from  History.    No.  II 349 

Lessons  from  History.    No.  Ill 352 

Lessons  from  History.     No.  IV 354 

Lessons  from  History.     No.  V 355 

British  Alliance 357 

Duration  of  French  Despotism 360 

Dangerous  Power  of  France.     No.  IV 368 

Dangers  of  American  Liberty 379 

Hints  and  Conjectures  concerning  the  Institutions  of  Lycurgus  438 

American  Literature 458 

Review  of  a  Pamphlet,  entitled,  Present  State  of  the  British 

Constitution  historically  illustrated 473 

Letters .  477 


WORKS 


FISHER  AMES. 


LUCIUS  JUNIUS  BRUTUS. 

First  published  in  the  Independent  Chronicle,  at  Boston,  October  1?,  1786. 

This  political  speculation  was  written  after  several  of  the  courts  ofjustice  had  been  stopped 
by  the  insurgents,  and  before  the  marching  of  the  army  commanded  by  general  Lincoln, 
which  happily  suppressed  that  rebellion.  The  writer  was  then  young,  and  had  taken  no 
share  in  publick  affairs.  A  perusal  of  the  publick  journals  and  newspapers  of  that  period 
will  prove,  that  no  other  man  had  then  the  boldness  to  express,  and  it  is  believed,  that  few  had 
the  discernment  to  entertain,  so  many  correct  ideas  upon  the  critical  state  of  our  country. 
It  is  well  also  to  remark,  that  the  principles  and  opinions  of  the  writer  were  precisely  the 
same  with  those,  which  he  so  eloquently  maintained  throughout  his  whole  life.  In  a  man, 
endowed  with  a  mind  so  luminous,  and  of  a  heart  so  pure,  this  uniform  adherence  to  the 
same  opinions  will  afford  no  small  weight  of  evidence  in  favour  of  their  correctness.  This 
piece,  written  when  it  was  wholly  uncertain,  whether  the  republick  or  its  foes  would  be 
victorious,  is  an  ample  proof  of  the  fortitude,  the  patriotism,  and  the  ardent  zeal  of  the 
writer.  It  evinces,  that  he  was  the  declared  foe  of  faction  and  rebellion,  and  the  staunch 
friend  of  a  firm  republican  government. 

Hen,  iniseri  cives 
Non  hastes,  inimicaque  castra, 
Vestras  spes  uritis. 

iVJLANY  friends  of  the  government  seem  to  think  it  a  duty 
to  practise  a  little  well  intended  hypocrisy,  when  conversing 
on  the  subject  of  the  late  commotions  in  the  commonwealth. 
They  seem  to  think  it  prudent  and  necessary  to  conceal  from 
the  people,  and  even  from  themselves,  the  magnitude  of  the 
present  danger.  They  affect  to  hope,  that  there  is  not  any  real 
disaffection  to  government  among  the  rioters,  and  that  reason 
will  soon  dispel  the  delusion  which  has  excited  them  to  arms, 
1 


2  LUCIUS  JUNIUS  BRUTUS, 

But  the  present  crisis  is  too  important,  and  appearances  too 
menacing,  to  admit  of  pusillanimous  councils,  and  half-way 
measures.  Every  citizen  has  a  right  to  know  the  truth.  It  is 
time  to  speak  out,  and  to  rouse  the  torpid  patriotism  of  men, 
who  have  every  thing  to  lose  by  the  subversion  of  an  excellent 
constitution. 

THE  members  of  the  general  court  acquired  the  esteem 
of  the  most  respectable  part  of  the  community,  by  their  wise 
and  manly  conduct  during  the  last  session:  the  task  before 
them  is  now  become  arduous  indeed ;  the  eyes  of  their  country, 
and  of  the  world,  are  upon  them,  while  they  resolve,  either  to 
surrender  the  constitution  of  their  country,  without  an  effort, 
or,  by  exerting  the  whole  force  of  the  state  in  its  defence,  to 
satisfy  their  constituents,  that  its  fall  (if  it  must  fall)  was  ef 
fected  by  a  force,  against  which  all  the  resources  of  prudence 
and  patriotism  had  been  called  forth  in  vain. 

IT  will  be  necessary  to  consider  the  nature  and  probable  con 
sequences  of  the  late  riots,  in  order  to  determine,  whether  this 
alternative,  to  surrender  or  to  defend  the  constitution,  is  now 
the  question  before  the  general  court. 

THE  crime  of  high  treason  has  not  been  always  supposed  to 
imply  the  greatest  moral  turpitude  and  corruption  of  mind ; 
but  it  has  ever  stood  first  on  the  list  of  civil  crimes.  In 
European  states,  the  rebellion  of  a  small  number  of  persons 
can  excite  but  little  apprehension,  and  no  danger ;  an  armed 
force  is  there  kept  up,  which  can  crush  tumults  almost  as  soon 
as  they  break  out ;  or  if  a  rebellion  prevails,  the  conqueror  suc 
ceeds  to  the  power  and  titles  of  his  vanquished  competitor. 
The  head  of  the  government  is  changed ;  but  the  government 
remains. 

THE  crime  of  levying  war  against  the  state  is  attended  with 
particular  aggravations  and  dangers  in  this  country.  Our  go 
vernment  has  no  armed  force  ;  it  subsists  by  the  supposed 
approbation  of  the  majority:  the  first  murmurs  of  sedition 
excite  doubts  of  that  approbation ;  timid,  credulous,  and  ambi 
tious  men  concur  to  magnify  the  danger.  In  such  a  govern 
ment,  the  danger  is  real,  as  soon  as  it  is  dreaded.  No  sooner 


LUCIUS  JUNIUS  BRUTUS.  3 

Is  the  standard  of  rebellion  displayed,  than  men  of  desperate 
principles  and  fortunes  resort  to  it ;  the  pillars  of  government 
are  shaken ;  the  edifice  totters  from  its  centre  ;  the  foot  of  a 
child  may  overthrow  it ;  the  hands  of  giants  cannot  rebuild  it. 
For  if  our  government  should  be  destroyed,  what  but  the  total 
destruction  of  civil  society  must  ensue  ?  A  more  popular  form 
could  not  be  contrived,  nor  could  it  stand :  one  less  popular 
would  not  be  adopted.  The  people,  then,  wearied  by  anarchy, 
and  wasted  by  intestine  war,  must  fall  an  easy  prey  to  foreign  or 
domestick  tyranny.  Besides,  our  constitution  is  the  free  act  of 
the  people ;  they  stand  solemnly  pledged  for  its  defence,  and 
treason  against  such  a  constitution  implies  a  high  degree  of 
moral  depravity. 

SUCH  are  the  aggravations  of  the  crime  of  high  treason 
against  the  commonwealth  of  Massachusetts. 

Is  it  safe,  by  our  timidity,  and  affected  moderation,  to  afford 
the  principal  perpetrators  of  this  atrocious  crime  the  prospect 
of  impunity?  There  are  offences,  which  wise  nations  have 
supposed  it  unsafe  to  pardon.  For  their  forgeries,  the  bene 
volent  Dodd,  and  the  ingenious  Ryland,  suffered  death :  the 
pardon  of  the  one  was  refused  to  the  tears  of  a  suppliant  nation ; 
nor  could  a  monarch's  favour  save  the  other  from  his  punish 
ment.  This  crime  against  a  free  commonwealth,  which  has 
no  standing  military  force,  will  be  repeated,  if  it  is  not  punished : 
witness  the  increase  of  insolence  and  numbers,  with  which  the 
late  riots  have  succeeded  each  other.  The  certainty  of  punish 
ment  is  the  truest  security  against  crimes  :  but  if  a  number  of 
individuals  are  allowed  with  impunity  to  support,  by  arms, 
their  disapprobation  of  public  measures,  though  the  constitu 
tion  should  remain,  yet  we  shall  be  cursed  with  a  government 
by  men,  and  not  by  laws.  The  plans  of  an  enlightened  and  per 
manent  national  policy  may  be  defeated  by,  and,  in  fact,  must 
depend  upon  the  desperate  ambition  of  the  worst  men  in  the 
commonwealth ;  upon  the  convenience  of  bankrupts  and  sots, 
who  have  gambled  or  slept  away  their  estates ;  upon  the 
sophisms  of  wrong  headed  men  of  some  understanding;  and 
upon  the  prejudices,  caprice,  and  ignorant  enthusiasm  of  a 


4  LUCIUS  JUNIUS  BRUTUS. 

multitude  of  tavern-haunting  politicians,  who  have  none  at  all. 
The  supreme  power  of  the  state  will  be  found  to  reside  with 
such  men ;  and  in  making  laws,  the  object  will  not  be  the 
general  good,  but  the  will  and  interest  of  the  vile  legislators. 
This  will  be  a  government  by  men,  and  the  worst  of  men ; 
and  such  men,  actuated  by  the  strongest  passions  of  the  heart, 
having  nothing  to  lose,  and  hoping,  from  the  general  confusion, 
to  reap  a  copious  harvest,  will  acquire,  in  every  society,  a  larger 
share  of  influence  than  equal  property  and  abilities  will  give 
to  better  citizens.  The  motives  to  refuse  obedience  to  gov 
ernment  are  many  and  strong  ;  impunity  will  multiply  and 
enforce  them.  Many  men  would  rebel,  rather  than  be  ruined ; 
but  they  would  rather  not  rebel,  than  be  hanged.  The  English 
government  may  sometimes  treat  insurrections  with  lenity,  for 
they  dare  to  punish.  But  who  will  impute  our  forbearance 
either  to  prudence  or  magnanimity. 

IT  need  not  be  observed,  that  it  is  rebellion  to  oppose  any  of 
the  courts  of  justice;  but  opposing  the  supreme  court,  whose 
justices  are  so  revered  for  their  great  learning  and  integrity,  is 
known  to  be  high  treason  by  every  individual  who  has  mingled 
with  the  mob.  Many  of  them  have  been  deluded  with  the 
pretence  of  grievances ;  but  they  well  know,  that  the  method  of 
redress,  which  they  have  sought,  is  treasonable  ;  they  dare  to 
commit  the  offence,  because  they  believe  that  government  have 
not  the  power  and  spirit  to  punish  them. 

THIS  seems,  therefore,  to  be  the  time,  and  perhaps  the  only 
time,  to  revive  just  ideas  of  the  criminality  and  danger  of  trea 
son  ;  for  our  government  to  govern;  for  our  rulers  to  -vindicate 
the  -violated  majesty  of  a  free  commonwealth;  to  convince  the 
advocates  of  democracy,  that  the  constitution  may  yet  be  defended, 
and  that  it  is  worth  defending;  that  the  supreme  power  is  really 
held  by  the  legal  representatives  of  the  people;  that  the  county 
conventions  and  riotous  assemblies  of  armed  men  shall  no  longer 
be  allowed  to  legislate,  and  to  form  an  imperium  in  imperio ; 
and  that  the  protection  of  government  shall  yet  be  effectually 
friended  to  every  citizen  of  the  commonwealth. 


LUCIUS  JUNIUS  BRUTUS.  5 

IN  a  free  government,  the  reality  of  grievances  is  no  kind 
of  justification  of  rebellion.  It  is  hoped  that  our  rulers  will 
act  with  dignity  and  wisdom ;  that  they  will  yield  every  thing 
to  reason,  and  refuse  every  thing  to  force  ;  that  they  will  not 
consider  any  burdens  as  a  grievance,  which  it  is  the  duty  of 
the  people  to  bear ;  but  if  the  burden  is  too  weighty  for  them 
to  endure,  that  they  will  lighten  it ;  and  that  they  will  not  de 
scend  to  the  injustice  and  meanness  of  purchasing  leave  to  hold 
their  authority,  by  sacrificing  a  part  of  the  community  to  the 
•villany  and  ignorance  of  the  disaffected. 

IT  may  be  very  proper  to  use  arguments,  to  publish  ad 
dresses,  and  fulminate  proclamations,  against  high  treason: 
but  the  man  who  expects  to  disperse  a  mob  of  a  thousand  men, 
by  ten  thousand  arguments,  has  certainly  never  been  in  one. 
I  have  heard  it  remarked,  that  men  are  not  to  be  reasoned  out 
of  an  opinion  that  they  have  not  reasoned  themselves  into. 
The  case,  though  important,  is  simple.  Government  does  not 
subsist  by  making  proselytes  to  sound  reason,  or  by  compro 
mise  and  arbitration  with  its  members  ;  but  by  the  power  of 
the  community  compelling  the  obedience  of  individuals.  If 
that  is  not  done,  who  will  seek  its  protection,  or  fear  its  ven 
geance.  Government  may  prevail  in  the  argument,  and  yet  we 
may  lose  the  constitution. 

WE  have  been  told,  that  the  hatchet  of  rebellion  would  be 
buried,  at  least  till  another  occasion  shall  call  it  forth,  provided 
all  publick  and  private  debts  be  abolished,  or,  in  lieu  of  such 
abolition,  that  a  tender  act  be  passed ;  or  an  emission  of  paper 
money,  as  a  tender  for  all  debts,  should  be  made ;  or  that  the 
courts  of  justice  should  be  shut,  until  all  grievances  are  re 
dressed. 

HERE  naturally  arise  two  questions.  In  strict  justice,  ought 
our  rulers  to  adopt  either  of  these  measures  ?  And  should  they 
adopt  either,  or  all  of  them,  will  the  energy  of  government  be 
restored,  and  the  constitution  be  preserved  ? 

As  to  the  first  question,  who  is  there  that  keeps  company 
with  honest  men,  that  will  not  give  scope  to  the  vehement 
detestation  that  he  bears  the  idea?  Is  there  a  rogue  in  the 


6        ,  LUCIUS  JUN1US  BRUTUS. 

state  so  hardened  against  shame  and  conscience,  that  he  would 
consent  to  be,  alone,  the  author  of  either  of  those  measures  ? 
It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  time  is  not  yet  arrived,  when  the 
government  of  a  free,  new  people  is  worse  than  the  worst 
man  in  it. 

BUT  should  government  resolve,  that  a  measure  which  is 
morally  wrong,  is  politically  right;  that  it  is  necessary  to 
sacrifice  its  friends  and  advocates  to  buy  a  truce  from  its  foes ; 
will  those  foes,  having  tasted  the  sweets  of  ruling,  intermit 
their  enterprises,  while  there  is  a  remnant  of  authority  left  in 
the  state  to  inflict  punishments  and  to  impose  taxes,  and  that 
authority  is  no  longer  formidable  by  the  support  of  those  men, 
whose  rights  have  been  already  surrendered  ?  Did  cowardice, 
did  injustice,  ever  save  a  sinking  state  ?  Did  any  man,  by  giv 
ing  up  a  portion  of  his  just  right,  because  he  had  not  courage 
to  maintain  it,  ever  save  the  residue  ?  The  insolence  of  the 
aggressor  is  usually  proportioned  to  the  tameness  of  the  suf 
ferer.  Every  individual  has  a  right  to  tell  his  rulers,  /  am  one 
of  the  parties  to  the  constitutional  contract.  I  promised  alle 
giance^  and  I  require  protection  for  my  life  and  property.  I  am 
ready  to  risk  both  in  your  defence.  I  am  competent  to  make  my 
own  contracts;  and  when  they  are  -violated,  to  seek  their  inter 
pretation  and  redress  in  the  judicial  courts.  I  never  gave  you  a 
right  to  ifiterpo.se  in  them.  Without  my  consent,  or  a  crime 
committed,  neither  you,  nor  any  individual,  have  a  right  to  my 
property.  I  refuse  my  consent;  I  am  innocent  of  any  crime.  I 
solemnly  protest  against  the  transfer  of  my  property  to  my  debtor. 
An  act  making  paper,  or  swine,  a  tender,  is  a  confiscation  of  my 
estate,  and  a  breach  of  that  compact,  under  which  I  thought  I 
had  secured  protection.  If  ye  say  that  the  people  are  distressed, 
I  ask,  is  the  proposed  relief  less  destressing?  Relieve  distress 
from  your  own  funds ;  exercise  the  virtues  of  charity  and  com 
passion  at  your  own  charge,  as  I  do.  Am  I  to  lose  my  property, 
and  to  be  involved  in  distress,  to  relieve  persons  whom  I  never 
saw,  and  who  are  unworthy  of  compassion,  if  they  accept  the 
dishonest  relief.  If  your  virtues  lead  you  to  oppress  me,  what 
am  I  to  expect  from  your  vices?  But  if  ye  will  suffer  my  life  to 


LUCIUS  JUNIUS  BRUTUS.  7 

depend  ufion  the  mercy  of  the  MOB,  and  my  property  upon  their 
opinion  of  the  expediency  of  my  keeping  it,  at  least  restore  me 
the  right,  which  I  renounced  when  I  became  a  citizen,  of  vindicat 
ing  my  own  rights,  and  avenging  my  own  injuries. 

IN  fine,  the  publick  will  be  convinced,  that  the  designs  of 
the  rioters  are  subversive  of  government ;  that  they  have  know 
ingly  incurred  the  penalties  of  high  treason ;  that  arguments 
will  not  reach  them ;  will  not  be  understood ;  if  understood, 
will  not  convince  them ;  and  after  having  gone  such  lengths, 
conviction  will  not  disarm  them ;  that,  if  government  should 
reason  and  deliberate,  when  they  ought  to  act ;  should  choose 
committees,  publish  addresses,  and  do  nothing ;  we  shall  see 
our  free  constitution  expire,  the  state  of  nature  restored,  and 
our  rank  among  savages  taken  somewhere  below  the  Oneida 
Indians.  If  government  should  do  worse  than  nothing,  should 
make  paper  money  or  a  tender  act,  all  hopes  of  seeing  the 
people  quiet,  and  property  safe,  are  at  an  end.  Such  an  act 
would  be  the  legal  triumph  of  treason. 

BUT  before  we  make  such  a  sacrifice,  let  us  consider  our 
force  to  defend  the  state.  And  to  direct  that  force,  at  the 
head  of  the  government  is  a  magistrate,  whose  firmness,  in 
tegrity,  and  ability,  are  well  known.  The  senate  and  house 
have  hitherto  deserved  the  public  confidence.  Every  man  of 
principle  and  property  will  give  them  his  most  zealous  aid. 
A  select  corps  of  militia  may  easily  be  formed,  of  such  men 
as  may  be  trusted;  the  force  of  the  United  States  may  be 
relied  upon,  if  needed.  The  insurgents,  without  leaders,  and 
without  resources,  will  claim  the  mercy  of  the  government,  as 
soon  as  vigorous  counsels  are  adopted. 

Bur  if  the  constitution  must  fall,  let  us  discharge  our  duty^ 
and  attempt  its  defence.  Let  us  not  furnish  our  enemies  with  a 
triumph,  nor  the  dishonoured  page  of  history  with  evidence,  THAT 

IT  WAS  FORMED  WITH  TOO  MUCH  WISDOM  TO  BE  VALUED, 
AND  REQUIRED  TOO  MVCH  VIRTUE  TO  BE  MAINTAINED  BY 
ITS  MEMBERS. 


CAMILLUS.     N°.  I. 

First  published  in  the  Independent  Chronicle,  March  1, 1787. 

Tliis,  and  the  two  following  pieces,  were  written  immediately  after  the  suppression  of  Shays'* 
insurrection,  and  before  any  measures  had  been  taken  either  to  guard  against  a  repi  tilion  of. 
similar  disorders  in  our  own  state,  or  to  strengthen  the  federal  government.  Two  reflec 
tions  naturally  arise  in  perusing  these  early  productions  of  Mr.  Ames's  pen:  that  he  was 
one  of  the  very  first  to  discern  the  importance,  and  to  urge  the  necessity  of  amending  the 
federal  compact.  He  early  saw  the  evils  of  the  old  confederation,  and  suggested  in  these 
essays,  before  the  calling  of  any  convention,  the  basis  of  a  federal  system,  in  a  remarkable 
degree  corresponding  with  the  one  which  was  afterwards  adopted.  It  is  also  to  l)e  observed, 
that  he  at  this  period  foresaw  the  dangers,  to  which  our  liberty  would  be  exposed ;  that  he 
apprehended,  (and  well  he  might,  from  the  events  of  that  day)  that  those  hazards  were 
chiefly  ou  the  popular  side,  and  tliat  despotism  would  be  much  more  likely  to  be  introduced 
by  factious  leaders,  under  the  garb  of  patriotism,  than  by  open,  direct  attacks.  He  manifests 
his  ardent  zeal  and  anxiety  for  a  republican  form  of  government,  and  ridicules  the  idea  of  .' 
the  possibility  of  introducing  a  monarchy  (except  an  absolute  one)  in  our  country.  The 
reader  will  notice  the  wonderful  coincidence  of  this  part  of  these  early  essays  with  a  post- 
humous  piece,  now  for  the  first  time  published,  entitled,  "  The  Dangers  of  American 
Liberty."  These  early  essays  render  any  explanation  of  the  latter  piece  unnecessary,  as 
they  obviously  display  the  motives  of  the  writer  in  thus  enlarging  upon,  and  depicturing 
in  gloomy  colours,  the  dangers  to  which  a  popular  government  is  liable.  It  was  because 
he  loved  the  republick,  and  cherished  it  with  unusual  warmth  and  affection,  that  he  was 
perpetually  pointing  out  its  hazards.  It  was  the  timely  admonition  of  a  fond  father  to 
secure  the  future  happiness  of  a  beloved  child. 

JL  HE  late  events  have  been  so  interesting  and  so  rapid,  that 
the  publick  mind  has  been  confounded  by  the  magnitude,  and 
oppressed  with  the  variety  of  the  reflections  which  result  from 
them.  The  season  of  the  most  useful  observation  for  states 
men  and  philosophers  is  not  yet  arrived.  Their  decisions  are 
made  upon  facts,  as  they  appear  in  their  simplicity,  after 
faction  has  ceased  to  distort,  and  enthusiasm  to  adorn  them. 
It  is  otherwise  with  the  publick.  Their  judgment  is  formed 
while  the  transactions  are  recent,  while  the  rage  of  party  gives 
an  acumen  to  their  penetration,  and  an  importance  to  their 
discoveries,  which,  however,  are  soon  cheerfully  consigned  to 
oblivion.  This  seems,  therefore,  to  be  the  time  to  reconsider 
the  state  of  parties,  and  to  examine  the  opinions,  which  have 
lately  prevailed.  Perhaps  some  fruit  may  be  gathered  from 
our  dear  experience ;  and  we  may,  in  some  measure,  succeed 
in  eradicating  the  destructive  notions  which  the  seditious  have 
infused  into  the  people. 


CAMlLLUS.  9 

BUT  experience,  which  makes  individuals  wise,  sometimes 
makes  a  publick  mad  :  judging  only  by  their  feelings,  disastrous 
events  are  usually  charged  to  the  agency  of  bad  men ;  and  in 
the  bustle,  excited  by  their  vindictive  zeal,  the  precious  lessons 
of  adversity  are  lost.  It  belongs  to  the  sage  politician  to  draw 
from  such  events  just  maxims  of  policy,  for  the  future  benefit 
of  mankind ;  and  it  belongs  to  mankind  to  keep  these  maxims 
accumulating,  by  repeating  the  same  blunders,  and  pursuing 
the  same  phantoms,  with  equal  ignorance,  and  equal  ardour,  to 
the  end  of  the  world.  This  disposition  is  so  obvious,  that  proof 
cannot  be  needed.  But  if  it  be  desired,  it  is  furnished  so 
abundantly  by  the  history  of  every  nation,  that  it  requires  some 
taste  to  select  judiciously  the  most  pertinent  evidence.  It  is 
most  useful  to  advert  to  our  own  times. 

IN  spite  of  national  beggary,  paper  money  has  still  its  advo 
cates,  and  probably,  of  late,  its  martyrs.  In  spite  of  national 
dishonour,  the  continental  impost  is  still  opposed  with  success. 
Never  did  experience  more  completely  demonstrate  the  ini 
quity  of  the  one,  and  the  necessity  of  the  other.  But,  in 
defiance  of  demonstration,  knaves  will  continue  to  proselyte 
fools,  and  to  keep  a  paper  money  faction  alive.  The  fear  of 
their  success  has  annihilated  credit,  as  their  actual  success 
would  annihilate  property.  For  many  years  we  may  expect, 
that  our  federal  government  will  be  permitted  to  languish, 
without  the  powers  to  extort  commercial  treaties  from  rival 
states,  or  to  establish  a  national  revenue.  All  this  is  notorious. 
It  is  the  common  language  of  the  people,  not  excepting  the 
least  informed.  But  it  is  vain  to  expect,  that  schemes  plainly 
unjust  and  absurd  will,  therefore,  want  advocates.  Our  late 
experience  forbids  this  confidence.  Hitherto  invention  has  not 
equalled  credulity;  and  the  next  pretence  for  rebellion  will 
more  probably  fail  of  rousing  the  disaffected  to  arms,  because 
it  is  not  monstrous  and  absurd  enough,  than  because  its  repug 
nance  to  reason  and  common  justice  are  palpable.  The  love 
of  novelty  and  the  passion  for  the  marvellous  have  ever  made 
the  multitude  mire  than  passive;  they  have  invited  imposture, 
and  drunk  down  deception  like  water.  They  will  remain  as 


fa  CAMILLUS. 

blind,  as  credulous,  as  irritable  as  ever :  ambitious  men,  and 
those  whose  characters  and  fortunes  are  blasted,  will  not  be 
wanting  to  deceive  and  inflame  them,  openly,  or  by  intrigue. 
The  opposition  to  federal  measures,  and  the  schemes  of  an 
abolition  of  debts  and  an  equal  distribution  of  property,  with 
their  subdivisions  and  branches,  will  be  pursued  with  unremit 
ting  industry,  till  they  involve  us  again  in  general  confusion, 
unless  government,  by  system,  energy,  and  honesty  shall  render 
the  laws  from  this  period  irresistibly  supreme. 

BUT  success  never  fails  to  produce  good  humour,  and  to 
procure  for  government  a  season  of  popularity.  The  publick 
attention  is  now  awake,  and  this  is  the  favourable  moment  to 
induce  the  people,  by  a  retrospect  of  their  errours,  to  renounce 
them,  to  place  confidence  in  their  rulers,  and  in  the  permanency 
and  energy  of  our  republick,  and  to  unite  in  the  patriotick 
sentiment,  that  it  is  indispensably  necessary  to  the  general 
prosperity,  and  to  the  very  existence  of  government,  that  the 
reins  should  be  resumed  and  held  with  a  firmer  hand ;  and  that 
palliatives  and  half  expedients,  and  the  projects  of  factious 
ignorance,  will  not  avail. 

To  a  philosophick  observer,  indeed,  the  present  confusion 
will  afford  an  inexhaustible  fund  of  astonishment  and  concern. 

HE  will  behold  men,  who  have  been  civilized,  returning  to 
barbarism,  and  threatening  to  become  fiercer  than  the  savage 
children  of  nature,  in  proportion  to  the  multitude  of  their 
wants,  and  the  cultivated  violence  of  their  passions.  He  will 
see  them  weaiy  of  liberty,  and  unworthy  of  it ;  arming  their 
sacrilegious  hands  against  it,  though  it  was  bought  with  their 
blood,  and  was  once  the  darling  pride  of  their  hearts ;  com 
plaining  of  oppression,  because  the  law,  which  has  not  forbidden, 
has  not  also  enforced  cheating ;  endeavouring  to  oppose  society 
against  morality,  and  to  associate  freemen  against  freedom. 
He  will  call  this  a  chaos  of  morals  and  politicks,  in  which  are 
floating  and  conflicting,  not  the  first  principles  and  simple 
elements,  out  of  which  systems  may  be  formed,  but  the 
fragments  which  have  escaped  the  wreck  of  institutions  and 
opinions;  not  the  embryo,  but  the  ruins  of  a  world.  When  he 


CAMILLUS.  11 

turns  his  eye  from  this  landscape  of  barrenness  and  horrour, 
so  painful  to  the  senses  and  the  imagination,  he  will  be  led  to 
contemplate  the  rigorous  wisdom  -of  Providence,  which  has  so 
palpably  ordained,  that  the  guilt  of  this  rebellion  shall  be 
punished  by  its  folly. 

IT  is  no  less  true  than  singular,  that  our  government  is  not 
supported  by  national  prejudice.  The  people  of  every  country, 
but  our  own,  though  poor  and  oppressed,  bear  a  patriotick 
preference  to  their  own  laws  and  national  character.  They 
will  not  suffer  any  one  to  revile  them.  The  Briton,  who  sells 
his  vote,  and  is  sold  by  his  representative,  glories  in  that 
freedom,  which  is  his  birthright:  without  the  smallest  know 
ledge  of  the  principles  and  institutions,  by  which  that  freedom 
is  secured,  he  relies  upon  the  fact,  and  takes  rank  of  a  French 
man,  whom  he  stigmatizes  as  a  slave.  To  defend  that  rank, 
his  ardent  valour  is  always  devoted  to  his  country.  Every 
Frenchman  is  equally  prompt  to  maintain  the  glory  of  his 
king.  This  prejudice  is  useful,  and  bears  to  just  political 
knowledge  the  relation  of  instinct  to  reason :  its  decisions  are 
quick ;  its  influence  uniform  and  certain.  It  is  the  cement 
of  political  union.  The  government  of  Turkey  is  doubtless 
applauded  at  Constantinople.  Tyranny  receives  the  homage 
of  its  dupes  and  its  victims  ;  but  liberty  among  us  cannot 
preserve  the  reverence  of  her  sons.  We  have  no  national 
character,  no  just  pride  in  the  glorious  distinction  of  freemen, 
which  elevates  a  Massachusetts  beggar  above  the  despots  of 
Asia.  We  have,  it  is  true,  our  portion  of  common  follies ; 
and  we  are  not  exceeded  by  any  people  in  the  zeal  to  maintain 
them  :  but  unfortunately  they  tend  to  vilify  and  to  destroy  the 
publick  liberty.  The  people  have  turned  against  their  teachers 
the  doctrines,  which  were  inculcated  in  order  to  effect  the  late 
revolution.  With  more  privileges  and  more  information  than 
are  possessed  by  the  inhabitants  of  any  other  country,  our 
citizens,  either  because  they  have  not  learned  the  value  of 
those  privileges  by  the  loss  of  them,  or  by  a  comparison  with 
the  nations  subject  to  despotism,  or  because  they  have  not  been 
accustomed  to  think  that  any  change  will  be  unfavourable  to 


12  M3AMILLUS. 

them,  appear  to  have  no  more  attachment  to  the  constitution 
than  to  the  rules  of  the  Robinhood  society.  The  admirers  of 
our  government  are  beyond  the  Atlantick.  It  is  extolled  by 
the  sages  of  Europe,  as  giving  the  sanction  of  law  to  the 
precepts  of  wisdom,  and  investing  philanthropy  with  the  power 
to  legislate  for  mankind.  But  far  from  contemplating  its  ex 
cellence  with  partial  fondness  and  implicit  reverence,  the 
people  arraign  the  institution  of  the  senate,  the  exactness  and 
-multiplicity  of  the  laws,  and  the  constitution  itself.  Devoted 
folly  !  Will  they  continue  to  destroy  the  pillars  of  their  security 
till  they  are  buried  in  the  ruins ! 


CAMILLUS.     N°.  II. 

IN  oiir  last  speculation  we  expressed  our  surprise,  that  a 
government,  which  is  free  almost  to  excess,  should  want  the 
love  and  veneration  of  that  class  of  the  people,  whose  rights 
and  privileges  are  so  peculiarly  connected  with  its  preservation. 
But  it  is  to  be  considered,  that  they  have  once  subverted  and 
again  formed  a  constitution.  Their  complete  success  in  both 
attempts  has  extinguished  all  their  ideas  of  the  difficulty  and 
hazard  of  this  operation ;  and,  accordingly,  they  seem  to  think 
it  as  easy  and  safe  to  change  the  government  as  the  repre 
sentatives.  We  have  already  considered  some  of  the  causes, 
which  have  produced  this  perversion  of  opinions.  It  is  not 
strange,  that  people  with  little  information  or  leisure,  with 
violent  prejudices  and  infinite  credulity,  should  make  indif 
ferent  politicians.  But  it  remains  a  subject  of  amazement, 
that  the  men  of  speculation  and  refinement  have  wandered  still 
more  widely  from  the  path  of  duty  and  good  sense.  It  will 
be  amusing  to  review  the  extravagances  of  these  framers  of 
hypotheses.  They  considered  the  contest  with  Britain,  as 
involving  the  fate  of  liberty  and  science.  To  animate  and 
recompense  their  sufferings  and  toils  during  the  conflict,  their 
ardent  enthusiasm  had  anticipated  a  system  of  government  too 


CAMILLUS.  13 

pure  for  a  state  of  imperfection.  When  they  found,  that,  for 
the  first  time  in  the  history  of  man,  a  nation  was  allowed  by 
Providence  to  reduce  to  practice  the  schemes,  which  Plato  and 
Harrington  had  only  sketched  upon  paper,  they  expected  a 
constitution  which  should  be  perfect  and  perpetual.  Politicks 
has  produced  enthusiasts  as  well  as  religion ;  and  in  the  theory 
of  our  constitution  they  could  trace  their  fancied  model  of 
perfection.  To  the  mind  of  the  dreamer  in  speculation  the 
government  was  a  phantom;  and  to  adorn  it  his  fancy  had 
stolen  from  the  evening  cloud  the  gaudiest  of  its  hues:  he 
had  dipped  his  pencil  in  the  rainbow  to  portray  a  picture  of 
national  felicity  for  admiration  to  gaze  at.  Then  was  the  time 
to  tell  of  virtue  being  raised  from  the  dungeon,  where  priests 
and  tyrants  had  confined  her ;  and  that  science  had  been  courted 
from  the  skies  to  meet  her :  then  was  the  time  to  talk  of 
restoring  the  golden  age,  without  being  laughed  at ;  and  many 
seemed  to  believe  that  a  political  millennium  was  about  to 
commence. 

BUT  here  end  our  heroes.  When  they  quitted  the  theory 
to  attend  to  the  administration  of  government,  they  descended 
to  vulgar  prose.  They  found,  that  their  admired  plan  of  freedom 
of  election  had  produced  a  too  faithful  representation  of  the 
electors ;  and  that  something  more,  and  something  worse  than 
the  publick  wisdom  and  integrity  were  represented.  They 
often  heard  the  unmeaning  din  of  vulgar  clamour  excited  to 
make  that  odious  which  was  right,  and  that  popular  which  was 
wrong. 

THEY  well  knew,  that  the  laws  were  made  supreme,  and 
that  politicks  should  have  no  passions.  Yet  it  was  soon  per 
ceived,  that  the  legislators  themselves  sometimes  felt,  and  too 
often  feared  and  obeyed,  the  sudden  passions  and  ignorant 
prejudices  of  their  constituents.  They  expected  a  government 
by  laws,  and  not  by  men ;  and  they  were  chagrined  to  see,  that 
the  feelings  of  the  people  were  not  only  consulted  in  all 
instances,  but  that  in  many  they  were  allowed  to  legislate. 
They  had  hoped,  that  the  supreme  power  would  prove,  to  all 
legal  purposes,  omnipotent;  and  they  were  thrown  into  abso- 


14  CAMILLUS. 

lute  despair,  when  they  found,  that  not  only  individuals,  but 
conventions,  and  other  bodies  of  men,  unknown  to  the  con 
stitution,  presumed  to  revise,  and  in  effect  to  repeal,  the  acts 
of  the  legislature.  Besides,  the  first  years  of  the  millennium 
had  fallen  far  short  of  the  expected  felicity.  But  when  a  mad 
people  flew  to  arms ;  when  they  found,  that,  in  spite  of  the 
indocile  and  impenetrable  stupidity  of  the  insurgents,  there 
was  so  much  meaning  in  their  wickedness ;  and  that  the  rea 
sonings  of  great  numbers,  who  espoused  the  cause  of  govern 
ment,  were  almost  as  hostile  as  the  violence  of  the  other 
party,  they  gave  way  to  their  spleen  and  disappointment,  and 
declared  their  conviction,  that  a  republican  government  was 
impracticable  and  absurd.  They  argued,  as  they  said,  from 
facts  as  well  as  from  principles,  that  such  a  government  was 
cursed  with  inherent  inefficiency ;  and  that  property  was  more 
precarious  than  under  a  despot :  a  despot,  they  said,  is  a  man, 
and  would  fear  the  retaliation  of  his  tyranny ;  but  an  enthu- 
siastick  majority,  steeled  against  compassion,  and  blind  to 
reason,  are  equally  sheltered  from  shame  and  punishment. 
The  theory  of  the  constitution  has  not  escaped  the  havock  of 
their  fastidious  criticism  :  and  they  have  seen,  with  com 
placency,  the  stupid  fury  of  Shays  and  his  banditti  employed 
to  introduce  a  more  stable  government,  whose  powers,  they 
predicted,  would  soon  be  lodged  in  the  hands  of 'abler  men. 
They  raved  about  monarchy,  as  if  we  were  ripe  for  it;  and  as 
if  we  were  willing  to  take  from  the  plough-tail  or  dram-shop 
some  vociferous  committee  man,  and  to  array  him  in  royal 
purple  with  all  the  splendour  of  a  king  of  the  Gypsies.  So  far 
as  we  may  argue  from  the  sympathy,  which  fools  and  hnaves 
have  for  their  fellows,  and  from  the  fact  of  Luke  Day's  in 
fluence  in  the  rebellion,  the  presumption  is,  that  our  king, 
whenever  Providence  in  its  wrath  shall  send  us  one,  will  be  a. 
blockhead  or  a  rascal. 

THE  sons  of  science,  who  have  adopted  this  reprehensible- 
mode  of  reasoning,  are,  notwithstanding,  the  most  sincere 
lovers  of  their  country :  they  are  not  the  men  to  subvert 


CAMILLUS.  15 

empires.  I  will  repeat  for  their  consideration  some  observa 
tions,  which,  though  trite,  are  not  unreasonable. 

THE  idea  of  a  royal  or  aristocratical  government  for  America, 
is  very  absurd.  It  is  repugnant  to  the  genius,  and  totally 
incompatible  with  the  circumstances  of  our  country.  Our 
interests  and  our  choice  have  made  us  republicans.  We  are 
too  poor  to  maintain,  and  too  proud  to  acknowledge,  a  king. 
The  spirit  of  finance  and  the  ostentation  of  power  would  create 
burdens ;  these  would  produce  the  Shayses  and  the  Wheelers. 
The  army  must  be  augmented  j  discontent  and  oppression 
would  augment  of  consequence.  But  this  is  mere  idle  spe 
culation  ;  for  every  honest  man  is  surely  bound  to  give  his 
support  to  the  existing  government,  until  its  power  becomes 
intolerable.  A  change,  though  for  the  better,  is  always  to  be 
deplored  by  the  generation  in  which  it  is  effected.  Much  is 
lost,  and  more  is  hazarded.  Our  republick  has  not  yet  been 
allowed  a  fair  trial.  The  rebellion  has  called  forth  its  powers, 
and  pointed  out,  most  clearly,  the  means  of  giving  it  stability  : 
let  us,  therefore,  cherish  and  defend  our  constitution;  and 
when  time  and  wealth  shall  have  corrupted  it,  our  posterity 
may  perform  the  melancholy  task  of  laying  in  human  blood 
and  misery,  as  we  have  done,  the  foundations  of  another 
government.  We,  who  are  now  upon  the  stage,  bear  upon 
our  memories  too  deep  an  impression  of  the  miseries  of  the 
last  revolution  to  think  of  attempting  another. 

IT  is  an  Herculean  labour  to  detail  our  political  absurdities. 
Since  the  days  of  Cromwell  there  has  not  been  an  instance  of 
such  general  infatuation.  But  while  almost  every  tavern  and 
conversation  circle  were  infested  with  the  harangues  of  the 
emissaries  of  treason,  who  without  fear  or  measure  reviled 
the  government,  and  without  shame  perverted  the  truth,  the 
opinions  of  the  people  at  large  were  inevitably  tainted  with  the 
impurity  of  the  source  from  which  they  were  derived. 

NOR  was  the  agency  of  rebel  emissaries  the  only  cause  of 
popular  errour.  Where  so  much  uneasiness  prevailed  against 
government,  they  could  not  be  pursuaded,  that  all  was  right. 
The  sufferers,  many  supposed,  were  the  best  able  to  decide 


16  CAMILLUS. 

upon  the  reality  of  their  grievances ;  and  so  many  honest  men 
would  not  combine  to  deceive  them.  The  general  court,  in 
their  last  session,  had  given  some  colour  to  these  presumptions, 
and  no  small  consequence  to  the  party,  by  the  minute  attention 
which  they  paid  to  their  complaints,  before  they  adopted  mea 
sures  to  suppress  the  rebellion,  and  by  the  laws  of  an  unpre 
cedented  nature,  enacted  for  their  relief.  Great  numbers  took 
their  fears  for  their  counsellors,  and  thought  it  rashness  to 
contend  against  the  invincible  host  of  insurgents.  Another 
state  tax  was  more  dreaded  by  many,  than  the  subversion  of 
government.  Some  said,  very  gravely,  Shays  himself  is  for 
government ;  while  others,  as  absurdly,  in  the  zeal  of  their 
philanthropy  against  shedding  blood,  seemed  wholly  to  forget, 
that  the  right  of  self  defence  belongs  to  rulers  as  plainly  as  to 
private  men.  In  matters  of  etiquette  and  punctilio,  the  apostles 
of  mischief  seemed  agreed,  that  it  was  more  proper  for  the 
rulers  of  a  great  commonwealth,  than  for  the  leaders  of  a  ragged 
banditti,  to  make  concessions.  Disappointed  men  have  hoped 
to  gratify  their  ambition  or  their  revenge :  the  abolition  of 
public  and  private  debts  has  been  a  favourite  object  with  some : 
others  (such  has  been  the  extreme  of  frenzy)  have  contended 
for  an  equal  distribution  of  property :  while  the  giddy  multitude 
have  enjoyed  the  bustle  of  parties,  and  have  found  amusement 
in  destruction. 

WITH  what  impressions  will  the  impartial  world  peruse  the 
record  of  these  facts  ?  They  will  be  ready  to  affirm,  with  the 
lunatick,  that  all  the  world  had  gone  mad,  except  a  few,  who, 
for  their  sobriety,  were  confined  in  Bedlam. 


CAMILLUS.     NO.  III. 

WE  cannot  look  back,  without  terrour,  upon  the  dangers 
we  have  escaped.  Our  country  has  stood  upon  the  verge  of 
tuin.  Divided  against  itself;  the  ties  of  common  union  dis 
solved  ;  all  parties  claiming  authority,  and  refusing  obedience  ; 


CAMILLUS.  17 

«very  hope  of  safety,  except  one,  has  been  extinguished  ;  and 
that  has  rested  solely  upon  the  prudence  and  firmness  of  our 
rulers.  Fortunately,  they  have  been  uninfected  with  the  frenzy 
of  the  times.  They  have  done  their  duty,  and  have  shewn 
themselves  the  faithful  guardians  of  liberty,  as  well  as  of  power. 
But  much  remains  to  do.  Sedition,  though  intimidated,  is 
not  disarmed.  It  is  a  period  of  adversity.  We  are  in  debt  to 
foreigners.  Large  sums  are  due  internally.  The  taxes  are 
in  arrears,  and  are  accumulating.  Manufactures  are  destitute 
of  materials,  capital,  and  skill.  Agriculture  is  despondent; 
commerce  bankrupt.  These  are  themes  for  factious  clamour, 
more  than  sufficient  to  rekindle  the  rebellion.  The  combusti 
bles  are  collected ;  the  mine  is  prepared ;  the  smallest  spark 
may  again  produce  an  explosion. 

THIS  is  a  crisis  in  our  affairs,  which  requires  all  the  wisdom 
and  energy  of  government:  for  every  man  of  sense  must  be 
convinced,  that  our  disturbances  have  arisen  more  from  the 
want  of  power,  than  the  abuse  of  it ;  from  the  relaxation,  and 
almost  annihilation  of  our  federal  government ;  from  the  feeble, 
unsystematick,  temporising,  inconstant  character  of  our  own 
state ;  from  the  derangement  of  our  finances,  the  oppressive 
absurdity  of  our  mode  of  taxation ;  and  from  the  astonishing 
enthusiasm  and  perversion  of  principles  among  the  people. 
It  is  not  extraordinary  that  commotions  have  been  excited.  It 
is  strange,  under  the  circumstances  which  we  have  been  dis 
cussing,  that  they  did  not  appear  sooner  and  terminate  more 
fatally.  For  let  it  be  remarked,  that  a  feeble  government 
produces  more  factions  than  an  oppressive  one :  the  want  of 
power  first  makes  individuals  legislators,  and  then  rebels. 
Where  parents  want  authority,  children  are  wanting  in  duty. 
It  is  not  possible  to  advance  further  in  the  same  path.  Here 
the  ways  divide ;  the  one  will  conduct  us  first  to  anarchy,  and 
next  to  foreign  or  domestick  tyranny ;  the  other,  by  the  wise 
and  vigorous  exertion  of  lawful  authority,  will  lead  to  per 
manent  power,  and  general  prosperity.  I  am  no  advocate  for 
despotism ;  but  I  believe  the  probability  to  be  much  less  of  its 
being  introduced  by  the  corruption  of  our  rulers,  than  by  the 
3 


13  CAM1LLUS. 

delusion  of  the  people.  Experience  has  demonstrated  that 
new  maxims  of  administration  are  indispensable.  It  i?  not, 
however,  by  sixpenny  retrenchments  of  salaries ;  nor  by  levying 
war4 against  any  profession  of  men;  nor  by  giving  substance 
and  existence  to  the  frothy  essences  and  fantastick  forms  of 
speculation ;  nor  is  it  by  paper  money,  or  an  abolition  of  debts ; 
nor  by  implicit  submission  to  the  insolence  of  beggarly  con 
ventions  ;  nor  by  the  temporary  expedients  of  little  minds, 
that  authority  can  be  rendered  stable,  and  the  people  prosper 
ous.  A  well  digested,  liberal,  permanent  system  of  policy  is 
required  ;  and,  when  adopted,  must  be  supported,  in  spite  of 
faction,  against  every  thing  but  amendment.  The  confedera 
tion  must  be  amended. 

WHILE  the  bands  of  union  are  so  loose,  we  are  no  more 
entitled  to  the  character  of -a  nation  than  the  hordes  of  vaga 
bond  traitors.  Reason  has.  ever  condemned  our  paltry  pre 
judices  upon  this  important  subject :  now  that  experience  has 
come  in  aid  of  reason,  let  us  renounce  them.  For  what  is 
there  now  to  prevent  our  subjugation  by  foreign  power,  but 
their  contempt  of  the  acquisition  ?  It  is  time  to  render  the 
federal  head  supreme  in  the  United  States.  It  is  also  time  to 
render  the  general  court  supreme  in  Massachusetts.  Con 
ventions  have  too  long,  and  indeed  too  unequally,  divided 
power.  Until  this  is  effected,  we  cannot  depend  upon  the 
success  of  any  plans  of  reformation.  When  this  is  done,  we 
ought  to  attempt  the  revival  of  publick  and  private  credit. 
With  what  decency  can  we  pretend,  that  republicks  are  sup 
ported  by  virtue,  if  we  presume  upon  the  foulest  of  all  motives, 
our  own  advantage,  to  release  the  obligation  of  contracts  ? 

SOME  measures  to  provide  for  the  common  safety  and 
defence  are  necessary.  It  ought  to  be  considered  how  far,  and 
in  what  manner,  this  may  be  accomplished,  by  perfecting  the 
discipline  of  the  militia,  or  by  calling  them  into  actual  service 
by  rotation.  Taxation  is  a  subject  of  the  greatest  nicety  and 
difficulty.  When  men  of  the  first  information  have  devised  a 
plan,  experience  only  can  give  it  the  stamp  of  excellence.  The 
established  mode  is  despicable  in  the  extreme.  It  is  arbitrary, 


CAMILLUS.  19 

uncertain,  and  unequal ;  the  smallest  possible  sum  is  taken 
out  of  the  pockets  of  the  people,  and  it  is  kept  the  longest  pos 
sible  time  out  of  the  hands  of  the  commonwealth. 

THESE  important  subjects  deserve  a  distinct  investigation. 
Perhaps,  at  some  future  pe'riod,  the  writer  may  be  seduced 
by  his  zeal  for  the  stability  of  the  government,  or  by  his 
vanity,  to  attempt  it. 

BUT,  in  the  mean  time,  he  would  warn  his  countrymen,  that 
our  commonwealth  stands  upon  its  probation.  If  we  make  a 
wise  use  of  the  advantages,  which,  with  innumerable  mischiefs, 
the  rebellion  has  afforded,  our  government  may  last.  This  is 
the  tide  in  our  affairs,  which,  if  taken  at  the  flood,  will  lead  to 
glory.  If  we  neglect  it,  ruin  will  be  inevitable.  It  is  in  vain 
to  expect  security  in  future  merely  from  the  general  convic 
tion,  that  government  is  necessary,  and  that  treason  is  a  crime. 
It  is  vain  to  depend  upon  that  virtue,  which  is  said  to  sustain 
a  commonwealth.  This  is  the  high  flown  nonsense  of  philo 
sophy,  which  experience  daily  refutes.  It  is  still  more  absurd, 
to  expect  to  prevent  commotions  by  conforming  the  laws  to 
popular  humours,  so  that  faction  shall  have  nothing  to  complain 
of,  and  folly  nothing  to  ask  for. 

THERE  is  in  nature,  and  there  must  be  in  the  administration 
of  government,  a  fixed  rule  and  standard  of  political  conduct, 
and  that  is,  the  greatest  permanent  happiness  of  the  greatest 
number  of  the  people.  If  we  substitute  for  these  maxims 
the  wild  projects,  which  fascinate  the  multitude  in  daily  suc 
cession,  we  may  amuse  ourselves  with  extolling  the  nice 
proportions  and  splendid  architecture  of  our  republican  fabrick. 
But  it  will  be  no  better  than  a  magnificent  temple  of  ice, 
which  the  first  south  wind  of  sedition  will  demolish. 

ANARCHY  and  government  are  both  before  us,  and  in  our 
choice.  If  we  fall,  we  fall  by  our  folly,  not  our  fate.  And 
we  shall  evince  to  the  astonished  world,  of  how  small  influence 
to  produce  national  happiness  are  the  fairest  gifts  of  heaven, 
a  healthful  climate,  a  fruitful  soil,  and  inestimable  laws,  when 
they  are  conferred  upon  a  frivolous,  perverse,  and  ungrateful 
generation. 


C   20   3 


SPEECH 

IN  THE  CONVENTION  OF  MASSACHUSETTS,  ON  BIENNIAL 
ELECTIONS. 

DELIVERED  JANUARY,  1788. 


A  DO  not  regret,  Mr.  President,  that  we  are  not  unanimous 
upon  this  question.  I  do  not  consider  the  diversity  of  senti 
ment  which  prevails,  as  an  impediment  in  our  way  to  the 
discovery  of  truth.  In  order  that  we  may  think  alike  upon 
this  subject  at  last,  we  shall  be  compelled  to  discuss  it  by 
ascending  to  the  principles,  upon  which  the  doctrine  of  repre 
sentation  is  grounded. 

WITHOUT  premeditation,  in  a  situation  so  novel,  and  awed 
by  the  respect  which  I  feel  for  this  venerable  assembly,  I 
distrust  extremely  my  own  feelings,  as  well  as  my  com 
petency  to  prosecute  this  inquiry*.  With  the  hope  of  an 
indulgent  hearing,  I  will  attempt  to  proceed.  I  am  sensible, 
sir,  that  the  doctrine  of  frequent  elections  has  been  sanctified 
by  antiquity ;  and  it  is  still  more  endeared  to  us  by  our  recent 
experience,  and  uniform  habits  of  thinking.  Gentlemen  have 
expressed  their  zealous  partiality  for  it.  They  consider  this  as 
a  leading  question  in  the  debate,  and  that  the  merits  of  many 
other  parts  of  the  constitution  are  involved  in  the  decision.  I 
confess,  sir,  and  I  declare,  that  my  zeal  for  frequent  elections 
is  not  inferiour  to  their  own.  I  consider  it  as  one  of  the  first 
securities  for  popular  liberty,  in  which  its  veiy  essence  may 
be  supposed  to  reside.  But  how  shall  we  make  the  best  use 
of  this  pledge  and  instrument  of  our  safety  ?  A  right  principle, 
carried  to  an  extreme,  becomes  useless.  It  is  apparent  that. 

*  This  was  Mr.  Ames's  first  speech  in  a  state  assembly. 


SPEECH  ON  BIENNIAL  ELECTIONS.  21 

a  delegation  for  a  very  short  term,  as  for  a  single  day,  would 
defeat  the  design  of  representation.     The  election  in  that  case 
would  not  seem  to  the  people  to  be  of  any  importance,  and 
the  person  elected  would  think  as  lightly  of  his  appointment. 
The  other  extreme  is  equally  to  be  avoided.     An  election 
for  a  very  long  term  of  years,  or  for  life,  would  remove  the 
member  too  far  from  the  controul  of  the  people,  would  be    ( 
dangerous  to  liberty,  and  in  fact  repugnant  to  the  purposes 
of  the  delegation.     The  truth,  as  usual,  is  placed  somewhere 
between  the  extremes,  and  I  believe  is  included  in  this  pro 
position  :  the  term  of  election  must  be  so  long,  that  the  repre-  , 
sentative  may  understand  the  interests  of  the  people,  and  yet  S 
so  limited,  that  his  fidelity  may  be  secured  by  a  dependence 
upon  their  approbation. 

BEFORE  I  proceed  to  the  application  of  this  rule,  I  cannot     | 
forbear  to  premise  some  remarks  upon  two  opinions  which 
have  been  suggested. 

MUCH  has  been  said  about  the  people's  divesting  themselves 
of  power,  when  they  delegate  it  to  representatives  ;  and  that 
all  representation  is  to  their  disadvantage,  because  it  is  but  an 
image,  a  copy,  fainter  and  more  imperfect  than  the  original, 
the  people,  in  whom  the  light  of  power  is  primary  and  un- 
borrowed,  which  is  only  reflected  by  their  delegates.  I  cannot 
agree  to  either  of  these  opinions.  The  representation  of  the 
people  is  something  more  than  the  people.  I  know,  sir,  but 
one  purpose,  which  the  people  can  effect  without  delegation, 
and  that  is,  to  destroy  a  government.  That  they  cannot  erect 
a  government,  is  evinced  by  our  being  thus  assembled  on  their 
behalf.  The  people  must  govern  by  a  majority,  with  whom 
all  power  resides.  But  how  is  the  sense  of  this  majority  to  be 
obtained  ?  It  has  been  said,  that  a  pure  democracy  is  the  best 
government  for  a  small  people,  who  may  assemble  in  person. 
It  is  of  small  consequence  to  discuss  it,  as  it  would  be  inap 
plicable  to  the  great  countiy  we  inhabit.  It  may  be  of  some 
use  in  this  argument,  however,  to  consider,  that  it  would  be 
very  burdensome,  subject  to  faction  and  violence :  decisions 


22  SPEECH  ON 

would  often  be  made  by  surprise,  in  the  precipitancy  of  passion, 
by  men  who  either  understand  nothing,  or  care  nothing  about 
the  subject ;  or  by  interested  men,  or  those  who  vote  for  their 
own  indemnity.  It  would  be  a  government  not  by  laws,  but 
by  men.  Such  were  the  paltry  democracies  of  Greece  and 
Asia  Minor,  so  much  extolled,  and  so  often  proposed  as  a 
model  for  our  imitation.  I  desire  to 'be  thankful,  that  our 
people  are  not  under  any  temptation  to  adopt  the  advice.  I 
think  it  will  not  be  denied,  that  the  people  are  gainers  by  the 
election  of  representatives.  They  may  destroy,  but  they  can 
not  exercise,  the  powers  of  government  in  person ;  but  by 
their  servants,  they  govern :  they  do  not  renounce  their  power ; 
they  do  not  sacrifice  their  rights ;  they  become  the  true  sove 
reigns  of  the  country,  when  they  delegate  that  power,  which 
they  cannot  use  themselves,  to  their  trustees. 

I  KNOW,  sir,  that  the  people  talk  about  the  liberty  of  nature, 
and  assert,  that  we  divest  ourselves  of  a  portion  of  it,  when 
we  enter  into  society.  This  is  declamation  against  matter  of 
fact.  We  cannot  live  without  society ;  and  as  to  liberty,  how 
can  I  be  said  to  enjoy  that  which  another  may  take  from  me, 
when  he  pleases.  The  liberty  of  one  depends  not  so  much 
on  the  removal  of  all  restraint  from  him,  as  on  the  due  re 
straint  upon  the  liberty  of  others.  Without  such  restraint, 
there  can  be  no  liberty.  Liberty  is  so  far  from  being  endanger 
ed  or  destroyed  by  this,  that  it  is  extended  and  secured.  For 
I  said,  that  we  do  not  enjoy  that  which  another  may  take  from 
us.  But  civil  liberty  cannot  be  taken  from  us,  when  any  one 
may  please  to  invade  it ;  for  we  have  the  strength  of  the 
society  of  our  side. 

I  HOPE,  sir,  that  these  reflections  will  have  some  tendency 
to  remove  the  ill  impressions,  which  are  made  by  proposing 
to  divest  the  people  of  their  power. 

THAT  they  may  never  be  divested  of  it,  I  repeat,  that  I  am 
in  favour  of  frequent  elections.  They  who  commend  annual 
elections  are  desired  to  consider,  that  the  question  is,  whether 
biennial  elections  are  a  defect  in  the  constitution  :  for  it  does 


BIENNIAL  ELECTIONS.  23 

not  follow,  because  annual  elections  are  safe,  that  biennial  are 
dangerous ;  for  both  may  be  good.  Nor  is  there  any  foundation 
for  the  fears  of  those  who  say,  that,  if  we,  who  have  been  accus 
tomed  to  choose  for  one  year  only,  now  extend  it  to  two,  the 
next  stride  will  be  to  five,  or  seven  years,  and  the  next  for 
term  of  life :  for  this  article,  with  all  its  supposed  defects,  is 
in  favour  of  liberty.  Being  inserted  in  the  constitution,  it  is 
not  subject  to  be  repealed  by  law.  We  are  sure,  that  it  is  the 
worst  of  the  case. 

IT  is  a  fence  against  ambitious  encroachments,  too  high  and 
too  strong  to  be  passed :  in  this  respect,  we  have  greatly  the 
advantage  of  the  people  of  England,  and  of  all  the  world.  The 
law  which  limits  their  parliaments  is  liable  to  be  repealed. 

I  WILL  not  defend  this  article  by  saying,  that  it  was  a  matter 
of  compromise  in  the  federal  convention :  it  has  my  entire 
approbation,  as  it  stands.  I  think  that  we  ought  to  prefer,  in 
this  article,  biennial  elections  to  annual ;  and  my  reasons  for 
this  opinion  are  drawn  from  these  sources. 

FROM  the  extent  of  the  country  to  bo  governed. 

THE  objects  of  their  legislation. 

AND  the  more  perfect  security  of  our  liberty. 

IT  seems  obvious,  that  men,  who  are  to  collect  in  congress 
from  this  great  territory,  perhaps  from  the  bay  of  Fundy,  or 
from  the  banks  of  the  Ohio,  and  the  shore  of  Lake  Superiour, 
ought  to  have  a  longer  term  in  office,  than  the  delegates  of  a 
single  state,  in  their  own  legislature.  It  is  not  by  riding  post 
to  and  from  congress,  that  a  man  can  acquire  a  just  knowledge 
of  the  true  interests  of  the  union.  This  term  of  election  is 
inapplicable  to  the  state  of  a  country,  as  large  as  Germany,  or 
as  the  Roman  empire  in  the  zenith  of  its  power. 

IF  we  consider  the  objects  of  their  delegation,  little  doubt 
will  remain.  It  is  admitted,  that  annual  elections  may  be  highly 
fit  for  the  state  legislature.  Every  citizen  grows  up  with  a 
knowledge  of  the  local  circumstances  of  the  state :  but  the 
business  of  the  federal  government  will  be  very  different. 
The  objects  of  their  power  are  few  and  national.  At  least  two 


24  SPEECH  ON 

years  in  office  will  be  necessary  to  enable  a  man  to  judge  of 
the  trade  and  interests  of  states,  which  he  never  saw.  The 
time,  I  hope,  will  come,  when  this  excellent  country  will 
furnish  food,  and  freedom,  (which  is  better  than  food,  which 
is  the  food  of  the  soul)  for  fifty  millions  of  happy  people. 
Will  any  man  say,  that  the  national  business  can  be  under 
stood  in  one  year  ? 

BIENNIAL  elections  appear  to  me,  sir,  an  essential  security 
to  liberty.  These  are  my  reasons. 

FACTION  and  enthusiasm  are  the  instruments,  by  which 
popular  governments  are  destroyed.  We  need  not  talk  oi 
the  power  of  an  aristocracy.  The  people,  when  they  lose  their 
liberties,  are  cheated  out  of  them.  They  nourish  factions  in 
their  bosoms,  which  will  subsist  so  long  as  abusing  their 
honest  credulity  shall  be  the  means  of  acquiring  power.  A 
democracy  is  a  volcano,  \;  hich  conceals  the  fiery  materials  of 
its  own  destruction.  These  will  produce  an  eruption,  and 
carry  desolation  in  their  way.  The  people  always  mean  right, 
and  if  time  is  allowed  for  reflection  and  information,  they  will 
do  right.  I  would  not  have  the  first  wish,  the  momentary 
impulse  of  the  publick  mind,  become  law.  For  it  is  not  ahvays 
the  sense  of  the  people,  with  whom,  I  admit,  that  all  powrer 
resides.  On  great  questions,  we  first  hear  the  loud  clamours 
of  passion,  artifice,  and  faction.  I  consider  biennial  elections 
as  a  security,  that  the  sober,  second  thought  of  the  people 
shall  be  law.  There  is  a  calm  review  of  publick  transac 
tions,  which  is  made  by  the  citizens,  who  have  families  and 
children,  the  pledges  of  their  fidelity.  To  provide  for  popular 
liberty,  we  must  take  care  that  measures  shall  not  be  adopted 
without  due  deliberation.  The  member  chosen  for  two  years 
will  feel  some  independence  in  his  seat :  the  factions  of  the 
day  will  expire  before  the  end  of  his  term. 

THE  people  will  be  proportionally  attentive  to  the  merits  of 
a  candidate.  Two  years  will  afford  opportunity  to  the  mem 
ber  to  deserve  well  of  them,  and  they  will  require  evidence 
that  he  has  done  it. 


BIENNIAL  ELECTIONS.  25 

BUT,  sir,  the  representatives  are  the  grand  inquisition  of  the 
union.  They  are  by  impeachment  to  bring  great  offenders 
to  justice.  One  year  will  not  suffice  to  detect  guilt,  and  to 
pursue  it  to  conviction  :  therefore  it  will  escape,  and  the 
balance  of  the  two  branches  will  be  destroyed,  and  the  people 
oppressed  with  impunity.  The  senators  will  represent  the 
sovereignty  of  the  states.  The  representatives  are  to  i*epre- 
sent  the  people.  The  offices  ought  to  bear  some  proportion 
in  point  of  importance.  This  will  be  impossible,  if  they  are 
chosen  for  one  year  only. 

WILL  the  people  then  blind  the  eyes  of  their  own  watch 
men  ?  Will  they  bind  the  hands  which  are  to  hold  the  sword 
for  their  defence  ?  Will  they  impair  their  own  power,  by  an 
unreasonable  jealousy  of  themselves  ? 

FOR  these  reasons  I  am  clearly  of  opinion,  that  the  article 
is  entitled  to  our  approbation  as  it  stands  :  and  as  it  has  been 
demanded,  why  annual  elections  were  not  preferred  to  biennial, 
permit  me  to  retort  the  question,  and  to  inquire  in  my  turn, 
what  reason  can  be  given,  why,  if  annual  elections  are  good, 
biennial  elections  are  not  better  ? 


C    26    ] 


SPEECH  ON  MR.  MADISON'S  RESOLUTIONS. 


OX  the  3d  of  January,  1794,  Mr.  Madison,  a  member  from  Virginia,  proposed  to  the  house 
of  representatives  of  the  United  States  a  series  of  resolutions,  to  impose  higher  duties,  and 
lay  greater  restrictions,  on  the  manufactures,  products,  and  ships,  and  on  particular 
branches  of  trade,  of  a  certain  nation,  or  of  nations  therein  described.  In  explanation  of 
his  motives  and  views,  he  spoke  of  the  security  and  extension  of  our  commerce,  as  a  prin 
cipal  object  for  which  the  federal  government  was  formed.  He  urged  the  tendency  ot 
his  resolutions  to  secure  to  us  an  equitable  share  of  the  carrying  trade;  that  they  would 
enable  other  nations  to  enter  into  a  competition  with  England  for  supplying  us  with 
manufactures  ;  and  in  this  way  he  insisted  that  our  country  could  make  her  enemies  feel 
the  extent  of  her  power,  by  depriving  those  who  manufactured  for  us  of  their  bread.  He 
adverted  to  the  measures  enforced  by  a  certain  nation,  contrary  to  our  maritime  rights; 
and  out  of  the  proceeds  of  the  extra  impositions  proposed,  he  recommended  a  reimburse 
ment  to  our  citizens  of  their  losses  arising  from  those  measures.  He  maintained,  that,  if 
the  nation  cannot  protect  the  rights  of  its  citizens,  it  ought  to  repay  the  damage  ;  and  that 
we  are  bound  to  obtain  reparation  for  the  Injustice  of  foreign  nations  to  our  citizens,  or 
to  compensate  them  ourselves. 

On  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Ames  thought,  that,  "  whatever  specious  shew  of  advantage  might 
be  given  to  the  policy  proposed  in  the  resolutions,  it  would  prove  an  aggravation  and  not  a 
renu-dy  of  any  supposed  or  real  evils  in  our  commercial  system."  He  considered  the  zeal 
for  unlimited  freedom  of  commerce  as  affected  and  insincere.  He  thought  it  ridiculous  in 
this  country  to  pretend,  at  this  time,  to  change  the  general  policy  of  nations  ;  and  to  begin 
the  abolit  on  of  restrictions  by  enacting  non-importation  laws.  Shutting  up  the  best 
markets  for  exports,  and  confining  ourselves  to  the  worst,  for  our  imports,  was  peculiarly 
inconsistent  and  absurd  in  those  who  profess  to  aim  at  the  benefit  of  trade.  To  him  it 
appeared,  that  under  the  pretence  of  making  trade  better,  it  was  to  be  annihilated  ;  that 
it  in'ght  serve  France,  but  would  certainly  injure  us.  He  saw  too  plainly  that  our  trade 
was  to  wage  war  for  our  politicks,  and  to  be  used  as  the  instrument  of  gratifying  polit  cal 
resentments. 

The  way  had  been  prepared  for  these  resolutions  by  a  report  from  Mr.  Jefferson,  as  secretary 
of  state,  on  the  same  subject,  which  had  been  long  laboured  to  give  it  the  aspect  which  it 
bore.  Mr.  Ames  saw,  or  thought  he  saw,  in  these  measures,  the  meditated  overthrow  of 
the  commercial  prosperity  of  the  United  States,  and  especially  of  that  part  of  then,  wliosa 
interests  were  particularly  confided  to  bis  care.  With  these  impressions,  he  made  the  fol 
lowing  speech  on  the  27th  of  the  same  month,  1794. 

JL  HE  question  lies  within  this  compass,  is  there  any  mea 
sure  proper  to  be  adopted  by  congress,  which  will  have  the 
effect  to  put  our  trade  and  navigation  on  a  better  footing  ?  If 
there  is,  it  is  our  undoubted  right  to  adopt  it  ;  if  by  right  is 
understood  the/zower  of  self-government,  which  every  indepen 
dent  nation  possesses,  and  our  own  as  completely  as  any  other, 
it  is  our  duty  also,  for  we  are  the  depositaries  and  the  guardians 
of  the  interests  of  our  constituents,  which,  on  every  considera- 


MR.  MADISON'S  RESOLUTIONS.  27 

tion,  ought  to  be  dear  to  us.  I  make  no  doubt  they  are  so,  and 
that  there  is  a  disposition  sufficiently  ardent  existing  in  this 
body  to  co-operate  in  any  measures  for  the  advancement  of 
the  common  good.  Indeed,  so  far  as  I  can  judge  from  any 
knowledge  I  have  of  human  nature,  or  of  the  prevailing  spirit  of 
publick  transactions,  that  sort  of  patriotism,  which  makes  us 
wish  the  general  prosperity,  when  our  private  interest  does  not 
happen  to  stand  in  the  way,  is  no  uncommon  sentiment.  In 
truth,  it  is  very  like  self-love,  and  not  much  less  prevalent. 
There  is  little  occasion  to  excite  and  inflame  it.  It  is,  like 
self-love,  more  apt  to  want  intelligence  than  zeal.  The  danger 
is  always,  that  it  will  rush  blindly  into  embarassments,  which 
a  prudent  spirit  of  inquiry  might  have  prevented,  but  from 
which  it  will  scarcely  find  means  to  extricate  us.  While 
therefore  the  right,  the  duty,  and  the  inclination  to  advance 
the  trade  and  navigation  of  the  United  States,  are  acknowledged 
and  felt  by  us  all,  the  choice  of  the  proper  means  to  that  end  is 
a  matter  requiring  the  most  circumspect  inquiry,  and  the  most 
dispassionate  judgment. 

AFTER  a  debate  has  continued  a  long  time,  the  subject  very 
frequently  becomes  tiresome  before  it  is  exhausted.  Argu 
ments,  however  solid,  urged  by  different  speakers,  can  scarcely 
fail  to  render  the  discussion  both  complex  and  diffusive. 
Without  pretending  to  give  to  my  arguments  any  other  merit, 
I  shall  aim  at  simplicity. 

WE  hear  it  declared,  that  the  design  of  the  resolutions  is 
to  place  our  trade  and  navigation  on  a  better  footing.  By  better 
footing,  we  are  to  understand  a  more  profitable  one.  Profit  is 
a  plain  word,  that  cannot  be  misunderstood. 

WE  have,  to  speak  in  round  numbers,  twenty  million  dol 
lars  of  exports  annually.  To  have  the  trade  of  exports  on  a 
'good  footing,  means  nothing  more  than  to  sell  them  dear ;  and 
consequently  the  trade  of  import  on  a  good  footing,  is  to  buy 
cheap.  To  put  them  both  on  a  better  footing,  is  to  sell  dearer 
and  to  buy  cheaper  than  we  do  at  present.  If  the  effect  of  the 
resolutions  will  be  to  cause  our  exports  to  be  sold  cheaper, 


28  SPEECH  ON 

and  our  imports  to  be  bought  dearer,  our  trade  will  suffer  at) 
injury. 

IT  is  hard  to  compute  how  great  the  injury  would  prove ; 
for  the  first  loss  of  value  in  the  buying  dear,  and  selling  cheap, 
is  only  the  symptom  and  beginning  of  the  evil,  but  by  no  means 
the  measure  of  it ;  it  will  withdraw  a  great  part  of  the  nourish 
ment,  that  now  supplies  the  wonderful  growth  of  our  industry 
and  opulence.  The  difference  may  not  amount  to  a  great 
proportion  of  the  price  of  the  articles,  but  it  may  reach  the 
greater  part  of  the  profit  of  the  producer ;  it  may  have  effects 
in  this  way  which  will  be  of  the  worst  kind,  by  discouraging 
the  products  of  our  land  and  industry.  It  is  to  this  test  I  pro 
pose  to  bring  the  resolutions  on  the  table  ;  and  if  it  shall  clearly 
appear,  that  they  tend  to  cause  our  exports  to  be  sold  cheaper, 
and  our  imports  to  be  bought  dearer,  they  cannot  escape  con 
demnation.  Whatever  specious  shew  of  advantage  may  be 
given  them,  they  deserve  to  be  called  aggravations  of  any  real 
or  supposed  evils  in  our  commercial  system,  and  not  remedies. 

I  HAVE  framed  this  statement  of  the  question  so  as  to  com 
prehend  the  whole  subject  of  debate,  and,  at  the  same  time,  I 
confess  it  was  my  design  to  exclude  from  consideration  a 
number  of  topicks,  which  appear  to  me  totally  irrelative  to  it. 

THE  best  answer  to  many  assertions  we  have  heard  is,  to 
admit  them  without  proof.  We  are  exhorted  to  assert  our 
natural  rights  ;  to  put  trade  on  a  respectable  footing ;  to 
dictate  terms  of  trade  to  other  nations ;  to  engage  in  a  contest 
of  self-denial,  and,  by  that,  and  by  shifting  our  commerce  from 
one  country  to  another,  to  make  our  enemies  feel  the  extent 
of  our  power.  This  language,  as  it  respects  the  proper  sub 
ject  of  discussion,  means  nothing,  or  what  is  worse.  If  our 
trade  is  already  on  a  profitable  footing,  it  is  on  a  respectable 
one.  Unless  war  be  cur  object,  it  is  useless  to  inquire,  what 
are  the  dispositions  of  any  government,  with  whose  subjects 
our  merchants  deal  to  the  best  advantage.  While  they  will 
smoke  our  tobacco,  and  eat  our  provisions,  it  is  very  immaterial, 
both  to  the  consumer  and  the  producer,  what  are  the  politicks 


MR.  MADISON'S  RESOLUTIONS.  29 

t>f  the  two  countries,  excepting  so  far  as  their  quarrels  may 
disturb  the  benefits  of  their  mutual  intercourse. 

So  far  therefore  as  commerce  is  concerned,  the  inquiry  is, 
have  we  a  good  market. 

THE  good  or  bad  state  of  our  actual  market  is  the  question. 
The  actual  market  is  every  where  more  or  less  a  restricted 
one,  and  the  natural  order  of  things  is  displaced  by  the  artificial. 
Most  nations,  for  reasons  of  which  they  alone  are  the  rightful 
judges,  have  regulated  and  restricted  their  intercourse,  accord 
ing  to  their  views  of  safety  and  profit.  We  claim  for  ourselves 
the  same  right,  as  the  acts  in  our  statute  book,  and  the  resolu 
tions  on  the  table  evince,  without  holding  ourselves  accountable 
to  any  other  nation  whatever.  The  right,  which  we  properly 
claim,  and  which  we  properly  exercise,  when  we  do  it  pru 
dently  and  usefully  for.  our  nation,  is  as  well  established,  and 
has  been  longer  in  use  in  the  countries  of  which  we  complain, 
than  in  our  own.  If  their  right  is  as  good  as  that  of  congress, 
to  regulate  and  restrict,  why  do  we  talk  of  a  strenuous  exertion 
of  our  force,  and  by  dictating  terms  to  nations,  who  are  fancied 
to  be  physically  dependent  on  America,  to  change  the  policy  of 
nations  ?  It  may  be  very  true,  that  their  policy  is  very  wise  and 
good  for  themselves,  but  not  as  favourable  for  us  as  we  could 
make  it,  if  we  could  legislate  for  both  sides  of  the  Atlantick. 

THE  extravagant  despotism  of  this  language  accords  very 
ill  with  our  power  to  give  it  effect,  or  with  the  affectation  of 
zeal  for  an  unlimited  freedom  of  commerce.  Such  a  state  of 
absolute  freedom  of  commerce  never  did  exist,  and  it  is  very 
much  to  be  doubted  whether  it  ever  will.  Were  I  invested 
with  the  trust  to  legislate  for  mankind,  it  is  very  probable  the 
first  act  of  my  authority  would  be  to  throw  all  the  restrictive 
and  prohibitory  laws  of  trade  into  the  fire  ;  the  resolutions  on 
the  table  would  not  be  spared.  But  if  I  were  to  do  so,  it  is 
probable  I  should  have  a  quarrel  on  my  hands  with  every 
civilized  nation.  The  Dutch  would  claim,  the  monopoly  of  the 
spice  trade,  for  which  their  ancestors  passed  their  whole  lives 
in  warfare.  The  Spaniards  and  Portuguese  would  be  no  less 
obstinate.  If  we  calculate  what  colony  monopolies  have  cost 


30  SPEECH  ON 

in  wealth,  in  suffering,  and  in  crimes,  we  shall  say  they  were 
dearly  purchased.  The  English  would  plead  for  their  navigation 
act,  not  as  a  source  of  gain,  but  as  an  essential  means  of 
securing  their  independence.  So  many  interests  would  be  dis 
turbed,  and  so  many  lost,  by  a  violent  change  from  the  existing 
to  an  unknown  order  of  things ;  and  the  mutual  relations  of 
nations,  in  respect  to  their  power  and  wealth,  would  suffer  such 
a  shock,  that  the  idea  must  be  allowed  to  be  perfectly  Utopian 
and  wild.  But  for  this  country  to  form  the  project  of  changing 
the  policy  of  nations,  and  to  begin  the  abolition  of  restrictions 
by  restrictions  of  its  own,  is  equally  ridiculous  and  inconsistent. 

LET  every  nation,  that  is  really  disposed  to  extend  the 
liberty  of  commerce,  beware  of  rash  and  hasty  schemes  of 
prohibition.  In  the  affairs  of  trade,  as  in  most  others,  we  make 
too  many  laws.  We  follow  experience  too  little,  and  the  visions 
of  theorists  a  great  deal  too  much.  Instead  of  listening  to  dis 
courses  on  what  the  market  ought  to  be,  and  what  the  schemes, 
which  always  promise  much' on  paper,  pretend  to  make  it,  let 
us  see  what  is  the  actual  market  for  our  exports  and  imports. 
This  will  bring  vague  assertions  and  sanguine  opinions  to  the 
test  of  experience.  That  rage  for  theory  and  system,  which 
would  entangle  even  practical  truth  in  the  web  of  the  brain,  is 
the  poison  of  public  discussion.  One  fact  is  better  than  two 
systems. 

THE  terms,  on  which  our  exports  are  received  in  the  British 
market,  have  been  accurately  examined  by  a  gentleman  from 
South  Carolina  (Mr.  Wm.  Smith).  Before  his  statement  of 
facts  was  made  to  the  committee,  it  was  urged,  and  with  no  lit 
tle  warmth,  that  the  system  of  England  indicated  her  inveteracy 
towards  this  country,  while  that  of  France,  springing  from 
disinterested  affection,  constituted  a  claim  for  gratitude  and 
self-denying  measures  of  retribution. 

SINCE  that  statement,  however,  that  romantick  style,  which 
is  so  ill  adapted  to  the  subject,  has  been  changed.  We 
hear  it  insinuated,  that  the  comparison  of  the  footing  of  our 
exports,  in  the  markets  of  France  and  England,  is  of  no  im 
portance  ;  that  it  is  chiefly  our  object,  to  see  how  we  may  assist 


MR.  MADISON'S  RESOLUTIONS.  31 

and  extend  our  commerce.  This  evasion  of  the  force  of  the 
statement,  or  rather  this  indirect  admission  of  its  authority, 
establishes  it.  It  will  not  be  pretended,  that  it  has  been  shaken 
during  the  debate. 

IT  has  been  made  to  appear,  beyond  contradiction,  that  the 
British  market  for  our  exports,  taken  in  the  aggregate,  is  a 
good  one ;  that  it  is  better  than  the  French,  and  better  than 
any  we  have,  and  for  many  of  our  products  the  only  one. 

THE  whole"  amount  of  our  exports  to  the  British  dominions, 
in  the  year  ending  the  30th  September,  1790,  was  nine  mil 
lions  two  hundred  and  forty  six  thousand  six  hundred  and  six 
dollars. 

BUT  it  will  be  more  simple  and  satisfactory  to  confine  the 
inquiry  to  the  articles  following  : 

BREAD  stuff,  tobacco,  rice,  wood,  the  produce  of  the  fisheries, 
fish-oil,  pot  and  pearl  ash,  salted  meats,  indigo,  live  animals, 
flax-seed,  naval  stores,  and  iron. 

THE  amount  of  the  before  mentioned  articles,  exported  in 
that  same  year  to  the  British  dominions,  was  eight  millions 
four  hundred  and  fifty  seven  thousand  one  hundred  and  seventy 
three  dollars. 

WE  have  heard  so  much  of  restriction,  of  inimical  and  jea 
lous  probibitions  to  cramp  our  trade,  it  is  natural  to  scrutinize 
the  British  system,  with  the  expectation  of  finding  little  besides 
the  effects  of  her  selfish  and  angry  policy. 

YET  of  the  great  sum  of  nearly  eight  millions  and  an  half, 
the  amount  of  the  products  before  mentioned  sold  in  her  mar 
kets,  two  articles  only  are  dutied  by  way  of  restriction.  Bread 
stuff  is  dutied  so  high  in  the  market  of  Great  Britain,  as,  in 
times  of  plenty,  to  exclude  it,  and  this  is  done  from  the  desire 
to  favour  her  own  farmers.  The  mover  of  the  resolutions 
justified  the  exclusion  of  our  bread  stuff  from  the  French 
West-Indies  by  their  permanent  regulations,  because,  he  said, 
they  were  bound  to  prefer  their  own  products  to  those  even  of 
the  United  States.  It  would  seem  that  the  same  apology  would 
tlo  for  England,  in  her  home  market.  But  what  will  do  for  the 
vindication  of  one  nation  becomes  invective  against  another. 


32  SPEECH  ON 

The  criminal  nation  however  receives  our  bread  stuff  in  the 
West-Indies  free,  and  excludes  other  foreign,  so  as  to  give  our 
producers  the  monopoly  of  the  supply.  This  is  no  merit  in  the 
judgment  of  the  mover  of  the  resolutions,  because  ii  is  a  frag 
ment  of  her  old  colony  system.  Notwithstanding  the  nature  of 
the  duties  on  bread  stuff  in  Great  Britain,  it  has  been  clearly 
shewn  that  she  is  a  better  customer  for  that  article,  in  Europe, 
than  her  neighbour  France.  The  latter,  in  ordinary  times,  is 
a  poor  customer  for  bread  stuff,  for  the  same  reason  that  our 
own  country  is,  because  she  produces  it  herself,  and  therefore 
France  permits  it  to  be  imported,  and  the  United  States  do  the 
like.  Great  Britain  often  wants  the  article,  and  then  she  receives 
it ;  no  country  can  be  expected  to  buy  what  it  does  not  want. 
The  bread  stuff  sold  in  the  European  dominions  of  Britain,  in 
the  year  1790,  amounted  to  one  million  eighty  seven  thousand 
eight  hundred  and  forty  dollars. 

WHALE-OIL  pays  the  heavy  duty  of  eighteen  pounds  three 
shillings  sterling  per  ton  ;  yet  spermaceti  oil  found  a  market 
there  to  the  value  of  eighty  one  thousand  and  forty  eight 
dollars. 

THUS  it  appears,  that  of  eight  millions  and  an  half,  sold  to 
Great  Britain  and  her  dominions,  only  the  value  of  one  million 
one  hundred  and  sixty  eight  thousand  dollars  was  under  duty 
of  a  restrictive  nature.  The  bread  stuff  is  hardly  to  be  con 
sidered  as  within  the  description  ;  yet,  to  give  the  argument  its 
full  force,  what  is  it ;  about  one  eighth  part  is  restricted.  To 
proceed  with  the  residue  : 

Indigo  to  the  amount  of. 8  473,830 

Live  animals  to  the  West-Indies 62,415 

Flax-seed  to  Great  Britain... 219,924 

Total §756,169 

THESE  articles  are  received,  duty  free,  which  is  a  good  foot 
to  the  trade.  Yet  we  find,  good  as  it  is,  the  bulk  of  our  exports- 
is  received  on  even  better  terms  : 


MR.  MADISON'S  RESOLUTIONS.  33 

Flour  to  the  British  West- Indies g  858,006 

Grain 273,505 

Free.... while  other  foreign  flour  and  grain  are  pro 
hibited. 

Tobacco  to  Great  Britain 2,754,493 

Ditto  to  the  West-Indies 22,816 

One  shilling  and  three  pence  sterling,  duty ;  three 
shillings  and  six  pence  on  other  foreign  tobacco. 

In  the  West-Indies  other  foreign  tobacco  is  pro 
hibited. 

Rice  to  Great  Britain j  773,852 

Seven  shillings  and  four  pence  per  cwt.  duty ;  j 
eight  shillings  and  ten  pence  on  other  foreign  rice,  j 

To  W^est-Indies 180,077 

Other  foreign  rice  prohibited. 

Wood  to  Great  Britain /.     240,174 

Free. ...higher  duties  on  other  foreign. 

To  West-Indies |     382,48 1 

Free. ...other  foreign  prohibited. 

Pot  and  pearl  ashes ,     747,078 

Free. ...two  shillings  and  three   pence  on  other 
foreign,  equal  to  ten  dollars  per  ton. 

Naval  stores  to  Great  Britain \     190,670 

Higher  duties  on  other  foreign.  \ 

To  West-Indies 6,162 

Free. ...other  foreign  prohibited. 

Iron  to  Great  Britain 81,612 

Free....duties  on  other  foreign.  

$6,510,926 

THUS  it  appears,  that  nearly  seven-eighths  of  tie  exports 
to  the  British  dominions  are  received  on  terms  of  positive 
favour.  Foreigners,  our  rivals  in  the  sale  of  these  articles, 
are  either  absolutely  shut  out  of  their  market  by  prohibitions, 
or  discouraged  in  their  competition  with  us  by  higher  duties. 
There  is  some  restriction,  it  is  admitted,  but  there  is,  to  balance 

it,  a  large  amount  received  duty  free  ;  and  a  half  goes  to  the 
5 


34  SPEECH  ON 

account  of  privilege  and  favour.  This  is  better  than  she  treats 
any  other  foreign  nation.  It  is  better,  indeed,  than  she  treats 
her  own  subjects,  because  they  are  by  this  means  deprived  of 
a  free  and  open  market.  It  is  better  than  our  footing  with  any 
nation,  with  whom  we  have  treaties.  It  has  been  demonstra 
tively  shewn,  that  it  is  better  than  the  footing,  on  which  France 
receives  either  the  like  articles,  or  the  aggregate  of  our  pro 
ducts.  The  best  proof  in  the  world  is,  that  they  are  not  sent  to 
France.  The  merchants  will  find  out  the  best  market  sooner 
than  we  shall. 

*THE  footing  of  our  exports,  under  the  British  system,  is 
better  thin  that  of  their  exports  to  the  United  States,  under 
our  systen.  Nay,  it  is  better  than  the  freedom  of  commerce, 
which  is  one  of  the  visions  for  which  our  solid  prosperity  is 
to  be  hazarded ;  for,  suppose  we  could  batter  down  her  system 
of  prohibitions  and  restrictions,  it  would  be  gaining  a  loss ;  one- 
eighth  is  retricted,  and  more  than  six-eighths  has  restrictions 
in  its  favou.  It  is  as  plain  as  figures  can  make  it,  that,  if  a 
state  of  fre;dom  for  our  exports  is  at  par,  the  present  system 
raises  their,  in  point  of  privilege,  above  par.  To  suppose  that 
we  can  terify  them  by  these  resolutions,  to  abolish  their 
restrictions  and  at  the  same  time  to  maintain  in  our  favour 
their  duties,  to  exclude  other  foreigners  from  their  market,  is 
too  absurd  to  be  refuted. 

WE  h^-e  heard,  that  the  market  of  France  is  the  great 
centre  of  iur  interests  ;  we  are  to  look  to  her,  and  not  to  Eng 
land,  for  advantages,  being,  'as  the  style  of  theory  is,  our  .best 
customer  jnd  best  friend,  shewing  to  our   trade  particular 
favour  and  privilege  ;  while  England  manifests  in  her  system 
such  narrot  and  selfish  views.   It  is  strange  to  remark  such  a 
pointed  refutation  of  assertions  and  opinions  by  facts.     The 
amount  senl  to  France  herself  is  very  trivial.    Either  our  mer 
chants  are  jgnorant  of  the  best  markets,  or  those  which  they 
prefer  are  tlie  best ;  and  if  the  English  markets,  in  spite  of  the 
alleged  ill  ulage,  are  still  preferred  to  the  French,  it  is  a  proof 
of  the  superlour  advantages  of  the  former  over  the  latter.  The 
arguments  T  have  adverted  to  oblige  those  who  urge  them 


MR.  MADISON'S  RESOLUTIONS  35 

to  make  a  greater  difference  in  favour  of  the  English  than 
the  true  state  of  facts  will  warrant.  Indeed,  if  they  persist 
in  their  arguments,  they  are  bound  to  deny  their  own  conclu 
sions.  They  are  bound  to  admit  this  position :  if  France 
receives  little  of  such  of  our  products  as  Great  Britain  takes 
on  terms  of  privilege  and  favour,  because  of  that  favour,  it 
allows  the  value  of  that  favoured  footing.  If  France  takes 
little  of  our  articles,  because  she  does  not  want  them,  it  shews 
the  absurdity  of  looking  to  her  as  the  best  customer. 

IT  may  be  sdd,  and  truly,  that  Great  Britain  regards 
only  her  own  interest  in  these  arrangements ;  so  much  the 
better.  If  it  is  her  interest  to  afford  to  our  commerce  more 
encouragement  than  France  gives ;  if  she  does  this,  when  she 
is  inveterate  against  us,  as  it  is  alleged,  and  when  we  are 
indulging  an  avowed  hatred  towards  her,  and  partiality  towards 
France,  it  shews  that  we  have  very  solid  ground  to  rely  on. 
Her  interest  is,  according  to  this  statement,  stronger  than  our 
passions,  stronger  than  her  own,  and  is  the  more  to  be  depend 
ed  on,  as  it  cannot  be  put  to  any  more  trying  experiment  in 
future.  The  good  will  and  friendship  of  nations  are  hollow 
foundations  to  build  our  systems  upon.  Mutual  interest  is  a 
bottom  of  rock  :  the  fervour  of  transient  sentiments  is  not 
better  than  straw  or  stubble.  Some  gentlemen  have  lamented 
this  distrust  of  any  relation  between  nations,  except  an  interest 
ed  one  ;  but  the  substitution  of  any  other  principle  could 
produce  little  else  than  the  hypocrisy  of  sentiment,  and  an 
instability  of  affairs.  It  would  be  relying  on  what  is  not  stable, 
instead  of  wrhat  is  ;  it  would  introduce  into  politicks  the  jargon 
of  romance.  It  is  in  this  sense,  and  this  only,  that  the  word 
f  ivour  is  used  :  a  state  of  things,  so  arranged  as  to  produce 
our  profit  and  advantage,  though  intended  by  Great-Britain 
merely  for  her  own.  The  disposition  of  a  nation  is  immate 
rial  ;  the  fact,  that  \ve  profit  by  their  system,  cannot  be  so  to  this 
discussion. 

THE  next  point  is,  to  consider,  whether  our  imports  are  on 
a  good  footing,  or,  in  other  words,  whether  we  are  in  a  situa 
tion  to  buy  what  we  have  occasion  for  at  a  cheap  rate.  In  this 


36  SPEECH  ON 

view,  the  systems  of  the  commercial  nations  are  not  to  be  com 
plained  of,  as  all  are  desirous  of  selling  the  products  of  their 
labour.  Great  Britain  is  not  censured  in  this  respect.  The 
objection  is  rather  of  the  opposite  kind,  that  we  buy  too  cheap, 
and  therefore  consume  too  much ;  and  that  we  take  not  only 
as  much  as  we  can  pay  for,  but  to  the  extent  of  our  credit  also. 
There  is  less  freedom  of  importation,  however,  from  the  West- 
Indies.  In  this  respect,  France  is  more  restrictive  than  Eng 
land  ;  for  the  former  allows  the  exportation  to  us  of  only  rum 
and  molasses,  while  England  admits  that  of  sugar,  coffee,  and 
other  principal  West-India  products.  Yet,  even  here,  when 
the  preference  seems  to  be  decidedly  due  to  the  British  sys 
tem,  occasion  is  taken  to  extol  that  of  the  French.  We  are 
told  that  they  sell  us  the  chief  part  of  the  molasses,  which  is 
consumed,  or  manufactured  into  rum ;  and  that  a  great  and 
truly  important  branch,  the  distillery,  is  kept  up  by  their  liber 
ality  in  furnishing  the  raw  material.  There  is  at  every  step 
matter  to  confirm  the  remark,  that  nations  have  framed  their 
regulations  to  suit  their  own  interests,  not  ours.  France  is  a 
great  brandy  manufacturer  ;  she  will  not  admit  rum,  therefore, 
even  from  her  own  islands,  because  it  would  supplant  the  con 
sumption  of  brandy.  The  molasses  was,  for  that  reason,  some 
years  ago  of  no  value  in  her  islands,  and  was  not  even  saved  in 
casks.  But  the  demand  from  our  country  soon  raised  its  va 
lue.  The  policy  of  England  has  been  equally  selfish.  The 
molasses  is  distilled  in  her  islands,  because  she  has  no  manu 
facture  of  brandy  to  suffer  by  its  sale. 

A  QUESTION  remains  respecting  the  state  of  our  navigation. 
If  we  pay  no  regard  to  the  regulations  of  foreign  nations,  and 
ask,  whether  this  valuable  branch  of  our  industry  and  capital 
is  in  a  distressed  and  sickly  state,  we  shall  find  it  is  in  a  strong 
and  flourishing  condition.  If  the  quantity  of  shipping  was 
declining,  if  it  was  unemployed,  even  at  low  freight,  I  should 
say,  it  must  be  sustained  and  encouraged.  No  such  thing  is 
asserted.  Seamen's  wages  are  high,  freights  are  high,  and 
American  bottoms  in  full  employment.  But  the  complaint  is, 
our  vessels  are  not  permitted  to  go  to  the  British  West-Indies. 


MR.  MADISON'S  RESOLUTIONS.  37 

It  is  even  affirmed,  that  no  civilized  country  treats  us  so  ill  in 
that  respect.  Spain  and  Portugal  prohibit  the  traffick  to  their 
possessions,  not  only  in  our  vessels,  but  in  their  own,  which, 
according  to  the  style  of  the  resolutions,  is  worse  treatment 
than  we  meet  with  from  the  British.  It  is  also  asserted,  and 
on  as  bad  ground,  that  our  vessels  are  excluded  from  most  of 
the  British  markets. 

THIS  is  not  true  in  any  sense.  We  are  admitted  into  the 
greater  number  of  her  ports,  in  our  own  vessels  ;  and  by  far 
the  greater  value  of  our  exports  is  sold  in  British  ports,  into 
which  our  vessels  are  received,  not  only  on  a  good  footing, 
compared  with  other  foreigners,  but  on  terms  of  positive 
favour,  on  better  terms  than  British  vessels  are  admitted  into 
our  own  ports.  We  are  not  subject  to  the  alien  duties ;  and 
the  light  money,  Sec.  of  1*.  9d.  sterling  per  ton  is  less  than 
our  foreign  tonnage  duty,  not  to  mention  the  ten  per  cent,  on 
the  duties  on  goods  in  foreign  bottoms. 

BUT  in  the  port  of  London  our  vessels  are  received  free. 
It  is  for  the  unprejudiced  mind  to  compare  these  facts  with 
the  assertions  we  have  heard  so  confidently  and  so  feelingly 
made  by  the  mover  of  the  resolutions,  that  we  are  excluded 
from  most  of  their  ports,  and  that  no  civilized  nation  treats  our 
vessels  so  ill  as  the  British. 

THE  tonnage  of  the  vessels,  employed  between  Great  Britain 
and  her  dependencies  and  the  United  States,  is  called  two  hun 
dred  and  twenty  thousand ;  and  the  whole  of  this  is  represented  as 
our  just  right.  The  same  gentleman  speaks  of  our  natural  right 
to  the  carriage  of  our  own  articles,  and  that  we  may  and  ought 
to  insist  upon  our  equitable  share.  Yet,  soon  after,  he  uses 
the  language  of  monopoly,  and  represents  the  whole  carriage 
of  imports  and  exports  as  the  proper  object  of  our  efforts,  and 
all  that  others  carry  as  a  clear  loss  to  us.  If  an  equitable  share 
of  the  carriage  means  half,  we  have  it  already,  and  more,  and 
our  proportion  is  rapidly  increasing.  If  any  thing  is  meant 
by  the  natural  right  of  carriage,  one  would  imagine  that  it 
belongs  to  him,  whoever  he  may  be,  who,  having  bought  our 
produce,  and  made  himself  the  gwner,  thirvk.s  proper  to  take 


S8  SPEECH  ON 

it  with  him  to  his  own  country.  It  is  neither  our  policy  nor 
our  design  to  check  the  sale  of  our  produce.  We  invite  every 
description  of  purchasers,  because  we  expect  to  sell  dearest, 
when  the  number  and  competition  of  the  buyers  is  the  greatest. 
For  this  reason  the  total  exclusion  of  foreigners  and  their  ves 
sels  from  the  purchase  and  carriage  of  our  exports  is  an  ad 
vantage,  in  respect  to  navigation,  which  has  disadvantage  to 
balance  it,  in  respect  to  the  price  of  produce.  It  is  with  this 
reserve  we  ought  to  receive  the  remark,  that  the  carriage  of 
our  exports  should  be  our  object,  rather  than  that  of  our  im 
ports.  By  going  with  our  vessels  into  foreign  ports  we  buy 
our  imports  in  the  best  market.  By  giving  a  steady  and  mo 
derate  encouragement  to  our  own  shipping,  without  pretending 
violently  to  interrupt  the  course  of  business,  experience  will 
soon  establish  that  order  of  things,  which  is  most  beneficial  to 
the  exporter,  the  importer,  and  the  ship  owner.  The  best 
interest  of  agriculture  is  the  true  interest  of  trade. 

IN  a  trade,  mutually  beneficial,  it  is  strangely  absurd  to  con- 
aider  the  gain  of  others  as  our  loss.  Admitting  it  however  for 
argument  sake,  yet  it  should  be  noticed,  that  the  loss  of  two 
hundred  and  twenty  thousand  tons  of  shipping  is  computed 
according  to  the  apparent  tonnage.  Our  vessels  not  being 
allowed  to  go  to  the  British  West-Indies,  their  vessels,  mak 
ing  frequent  voyages,  appear  in  the  entries  over  and  over 
again.  In  the  trade  to  the  European  dominions  of  Great  Britain, 
the  distance  being  greater,  our  vessels  are  not  so  often  entered. 
Both  these  circumstances  give  a  false  shew  to  the  amount  of 
British  tonnage,  compared  with  the  American.  It  is  however 
very  pleasing  to  the  mind,  to  see  that  our  tonnage  exceeds  the 
British  in  the  European  trade.  For  various  reasons,  some  of 
which  will  be  mentioned  hereafter,  the  tonnage  in  the  West- 
India  trade  is  not  the  proper  subject  of  calculation.  In  the 
European  comparison,  we  have  more  tonnage  in  the  British 
than  in  the  French  commerce  ;  it  is  indeed  more  than  four  to 
one. 

THE  great  quantity  of  British  tonnage  employed  in  our 
trade  is  also,  in  a  great  measure,  owing  to  the  large  capitals 


MR.  MADISON'S  RESOLUTIONS.  5,9 

»F  their  merchants,  employed  in  the  buying  and  exporting  our 
productions.  If  we  would  banish  the  ships,  we  must  strike  at 
the  root,  and  banish  the  capital.  And  this,  before  we  have 
capital  of  our  own  grown  up  to  replace  it,  would  be  an  opera 
tion  of  no  little  violence  and  injury,  to  our  southern  brethren 
especially. 

INDEPENDENTLY  of  this  circumstance,  Great  Britain  is  an 
active  and  intelligent  rival  in  the  navigation  line.  Her  ships 
are  dearer,  and  the  provisioning  her  seamen  is  perhaps  rather 
dearer  than  ours :  on  the  other  hand,  the  rate  of  interest  is  lower 
in  England,  and  so  are  seamen's  wages.  It  would  be  impro 
per,  therefore,  to  consider  the  amount  of  British  tonnage  in 
our  trade,  as  a  proof  of  a  bad  state  of  things,  arising  either 
from  the  restrictions  of  that  government,  or  the  negligence  or 
timidity  of  this.  We  are  to  charge  it  to  causes,  which  are 
more  connected  with  the  natural  competition  of  capital  and 
industry,  causes,  which  in  fact  retarded  the  growth  of  our  ship 
ping  more,  when  we  were  colonies,  and  our  ships  were  free, 
than  since  the  adoption  of  the  present  government. 

IT  has  been  said  with  emphasis,  that  the  constitution  grew 
out  of  the  complaints  of  the  nation  respecting  commerce, 
especially  that  with  the  British  dominions.  What  was  then 
lamented  by  our  patriots !  Feebleness  of  the  publick  counsels ; 
the  shadow  of  union,  and  scarcely  the  shadow  of  publick  credit ; 
every  where  despondence,  the  pressure  of  evils,  not  only  great, 
but  portentous  of  civil  distractions.  These  were  the  grievances ; 
and  what  more  was  then  desired  than  their  remedies  ?  Is  it 
possible  to  survey  this  prosperous  country  and  to  assert  that 
they  have  been  delayed  ?  Trade  flourishes  on  our  wharves, 
although  it  droops  in  speeches.  Manufactures  have  risen  under' 
the  v  shade  of  protecting  duties  from  almost  nothing  to  such  a 
state,  that  we  are  even  told  we  can  depend  on  the  doniestick  sup 
ply,  if  the  foreign  should  cease.  The  fisheries,  which  we  found 
in  decline,  are  in  the  most  vigorous  growth  :  the  whale  fishery* 
which  our  allies  would  have  transferred  to  Dunkirk,  now  ex 
tends  over  the  whole  ocean.  To  that  hardy  race  of  men  the 
sea  is  but  a  park  for  hunting  its  monsters ;  such  is  their 
activity,  the  deepest  abysses  scarcely  afford  to  their  prey  a 


40  SPEECH  ON 

hiding  place.  Look  around,  and  see  how  the  frontier  circle 
widens,  how  the  interiour  improves,  and  let  it  be  repeated,  that 
the  hopes  of  the  people,  when  they  formed  this  constitution, 
have  been  frustrated. 

BUT  il*  it  should  happen,  that  our  prejudices  prove  stronger 
than  our  senses ;  if  it  should  be  believed,  that  our  farmers  and 
merchants  see  their  products  and  ships  and  wharves  going  to 
decay  together,  and  they  are  ignorant  or  silent  on  their  own 
ruin ;  stiil  the  publick  documents  would  not  disclose  so  -alarm 
ing  a  state  of  our  affairs.  Our  imports  are  obtained  so  plenti 
fully  and  cheaply,  that  one  of  the  avowed  objects  of  the  reso 
lutions  is,  to  make  them  scarcer  and  dearer.  Our  exports, 
so  far  from  languishing,  have  increased  two  millions  of  dollars 
in  a  year.  Our  navigation  is  found  to  be  augmented  beyond  the 
most  sanguine  expectation.  We  hear  of  the  vast  advantage 
the  English  derived  from  the  navigation  act ;  and  we  are  asked 
in  a  tone  of  accusation,  shall  we  sit  still  and  do  nothing  ?  Who 
is  bold  enough  to  say,  congress  has  done  nothing  for  the 
encouragement  of  American  navigation  ?  To  counteract  the 
navigation  act,  we  have  laid  on  British  a  higher  tonnage  than 
our  own  vessels  pay  in  their  ports ;  and  what  is  much  more  effec 
tual,  we  have  imposed  ten  per  cent,  on  the  duties,  when  the 
dutied  articles  are  borne  in  foreign  bottoms.  We  have  also 
made  the  coasting  trade  a  monopoly  to  our  own  vessels.  Let 
those,  who  have  asserted  that  this  is  nothing,  compare  facts 
with  the  regulations  which  produced  them. 
Tonnage.  Tons. 

American,  1789 297,468        Excess  of  American 

Foreign 265,116  tonnage. 

32,352 

American,  1790 347,663 

Foreign 258,916 

88,747 
American,  1791 363,810 

Foreign 240,799 

123,011 
American,  1792 415,330 

Foreign  244,263 

171,067 


MR.  MADISON'S  RESOLUTIONS.  41 

Is  not  this  increase  of  American  shipping  rapid  enough.? 
Many  persons  say  it  is  too  rapid,  and  attracts  too  much  capital 
for  the  circumstances  of  the  country.  I  cannot  readily  per 
suade  myself  to  think  so  valuable  a  branch  of  employment 
thrives  too  fast.  But  a  steady  and  sure  encouragement  is  more 
to  be  relied  on  than  violent  methods  of  forcing  its  growth.  It 
is  not  clear,  that  the  quantity  of  our  navigation,  including  our 
coasting  and  fishing  vessels,  is  less  in  proportion  to  those  of 
that  nation :  in  that  computation  we  shall  probably  find,  that 
we  are  already  more  a  navigating  people  than  the  English. 

As  this  is  a  growing  country,  we  have  the  most  stable  ground 
of  dependence  on  the  corresponding  growth  of  our  navigation : 
and  that  the  increasing  demand  for  shipping  will  rather  fall  to 
the  share  of  Americans  than  foreigners,  is  not  to  be  denied. 
We  did  expect  this  from  the  nature  of  cur  own  laws ;  we  have 
been  confirmed  in  it  by  experience ;  and  we  know  that  an 
American  bottom  is  actually  preferred  to  a  foreign  one.  In 
cases  where  one  partner  is  an  American,  and  another  a  foreigner, 
the  ship  is  made  an  American  bottom.  A  fact  of  this  kind 
overthrows  a  whole  theoiy  of  reasoning  on  the  necessity  of 
further  restrictions.  It  shows,  that  the  work  of  restriction  is 
already  done. 

IF  we  take  the  aggregate  view  of  our  commercial  interests, 
we  shall  find  much  more  occasion  for  satisfaction,  and  even 
exultation,  than  complaint,  and  none  for  despondence.  It  would 
be  too  bold  to  say,  that  our  condition  is  so  eligible  there  is 
nothing  to  be  wished.  Neither  the  order  of  nature,  nor  the 
allotments  of  Providence,  afford  perfect  content ;  and  it  would 
be  absurd  to  expect  in  our  politicks  what  is  denied  in  the  la\vs 
of  our  being.  The  nations,  with  whom  we  have  intercourse, 
have,  without  exception,  more  or  less  restricted  their  com 
merce.  They  have  framed  their  regulations  to  suit  their  real 
or  fancied  interests.  The  code  of  France  is  as  full  of  restric 
tions  as  that  of  England.  We  have  regulations  of  our  own  ; 
and  they  are  unlike  those  of  any  other  country.  Inasmuch  as 
the  interest  and  circumstances  of  nations  vary  so  essentially, 
the  project  of  an  exact  reciprocity  on  our  part  is  a  vision. 


42  SPEECH  ON 

What  we  desire  is,  to  have,  not  an  exact  reciprocity,  but  an 
intercourse  of  mutual  benefit  and  convenience. 

IT  has  scarcely  been  so  much  as  insinuated,  that  the  change 
contemplated  will  be  a  profitable  one  ;  that  it  will  enable  us  to 
sell  dearer  and  to  buy  cheaper  :  on  the  contrary,  we  are  invited 
to  submit  to  the  hazards  and  losses  of  a  conflict  with  our  cus 
tomers  ;  to  engage  in  a  contest  of  self-denial.  For  what — to 
obtain  better  markets  ?  No  such  thing  ;  but  to  shut  up  forever, 
if  possible,  the  best  market  we  have  for  our  exports,  and  to 
confine  ourselves  to  the  dearest  and  scarcest  markets  for  our 
imports.  And  this  is  to  be  done  for  the  benefit  of  trade,  or, 
as  it  is  sometimes  more  correctly  said,  for  the  benefit  of 
France.  This  language  is  not  a  little  inconsistent  and  strange 
from  those,  who  recommend  a  non-importation  agreement, 
and  who  think  we  should  even  renounce  the  sea  and  devote 
ourselves  to  agriculture.  Thus,  to  make  our  trade  more  free, 
it  is  to  be  embarrassed,  and  violently  shifted  from  one  country 
to  another,  not  according  to  the  interest  of  the  merchants,  but 
the  visionary  theories  and  capricious  rashness  of  the  legislators. 
To  make  trade  better,  it  is  to  be  made  nothing. 

So  far  as  commerce  and  navigation  are  regarded,  the  pre 
tences  for  this  contest  are  confined  to  two.  We  are  not  allowed 
to  carry  manufactured  articles  to  Great  Britain,  nor  any  pro 
ducts,  except  of  our  own  growth ;  and  we  are  not  permitted  to 
go,  with  our  own  vessels,  to  the  West-Indies.  The  former, 
which  is  a  provision  of  the  navigation  act,  is  of  little  importance 
to  our  interests,  as  our  trade  is  chiefly  a  direct  one,  our  shipping 
not  being  equal  to  the  carrying  for  other  nations ;  and  our 
manufactured  articles  are  not  furnished  in  quantities  for  ex 
portation,  and,  if- they  were,  Great  Britain  would  not  be  a  cus 
tomer.  So  far,  therefore,  the  restriction  is  rather  nominal 
than  real. 

THE  exclusion  of  our  vessels  from  the  West-Indies  is  of 
more  importance.  When  we  propose  to  make  an  effort  to 
force  a  privilege  from  Great  Britain,  which  she  is  loath  to 
yield  to  us,  it  is  necessary  to  compare  the  value  of  the  object 
with  the  effort,  and,  above  all,  to  calculate  very  warily  the 


MR.  MADISON'S  RESOLUTIONS.  43 

probability  of  success.  A  trivial  thing  deserves  not  a  great 
exertion ;  much  less  ought  we  to  stake  a  very  great  good  in 
possession  for  a  slight  chance  of  a  less  good.  The  carriage 
of  one  half  the  exports  and  imports  to  and  from  the  British 
West-Indies,  is  the  object  to  be  contended  for.  Our  whole 
exports  to  Great  Britain  are  to  be  hazarded.  We  sell  on  terms, 
of  privilege  and  positive  favour,  as  it  has  been  abundantly 
shewn,  near  seven  millions  to  the  dominions  of  Great  Britain. 
We  are  to  risk  the  privilege  in  this  great  amount — for  what  I 
For  the  freight  only  of  one  half  the  British  West-India  trade 
with  the  United  States.  It  belongs  to  commercial  men  to 
calculate  the  entire  value  of  the  freight  alluded  to.  But  it 
cannot  bear  much  proportion  to  the  amount  of  seven  millions. 
Besides,  if  we  are  denied  the  privilege  of  carrying  our  articles 
in  our  vessels  to  the  islands,  we  are  on  a  footing  of  privilege 
in  the  sale  of  them.  We  have  one  privilege,  if  not  two.  It 
is  readily  admitted,  that  it  is  a  desirable  tiling,  to  have  our 
vessels  allowed  to  go  to  the  English  islands ;  but  the  value  of 
the  object  has  its  limits,  and  we  go  unquestionably  beyond 
them,  when  we  throw  our  whole  exports  into  confusion,  and 
run  the  risk  of  losing  our  best  markets,  for  the  sake  of  forcing 
a  permission  to  carry  our  own  products  to  one  of  those  mar 
kets  :  in  which,  too,  it  should  be  noticed,  we  sell  much  less 
than  we  do  to  Great  Britain  herself.  If  to  this  we  add,  that 
the  success  of  the  contest  is  grounded  on  the  sanguine  and 
passionate  hypothesis  of  our  being  able  to  starve  the  islanders, 
which,  on  trial,  may  prove  false,  and  which  our  being  in 
volved  in  the  war  would  overthrow  at  once,  we  may  conclude, 
without  going  further  into  the  discussion,  that  prudence  for 
bids  our  engaging  in  the  hazards  of  a  commercial  .war ;  that 
great  things  should  not  be  staked  against  such  as  are, of  much 
less  value ;  that  what  we  possess  should  not  be  risked  for  what 
we  desire,  without  great  odds  in  our  favour  j  still  less,  if  the 
chance  is  infinitely  against  us. 

IF  these  considerations  should  fail  of  their  effect,  it  will  bo 
necessary  to  go  into  an  examination  of  the  tendency  of  the 


44,  SPEECH  OX 

system  of  discrimination  to  redress  and  avenge  all  our  wrongs, 
and  to  realize  all  our  hopes. 

IT  has  been  avowed,  that  we  are  to  look  to  France,  not  to 
England,  for  advantages  in  trade ;  we  are  to  shew  our  spirit, 
and  to  manifest  towards  those  who  are  called  enemies  the 
spirit  of  enmity,  and  towards  those  we  call  friends  something 
more  than  passive  good  will.  We  are  to  take  active  measures 
to  force  trade  out  of  its  accustomed  channels,  and  to  shift  it  by 
such  means  from  England  to  France.  The  care  of  the  con 
cerns  of  the  French  manufacturers  may  be  left  perhaps  as 
well  in  the  hands  of  the  convention,  as  to  be  usurped  into  our 
own.  However  our  zeal  might  engage  us  to  interpose,  our 
duty  to  our  own  immediate  constituents  demands  all  our  atten 
tion.  To  volunteer  it,  in  order  to  excite  competition  in  one 
foreign  nation  to  supplant  another,  is  a  very  strange  business ; 
and  to  do  it,  as  it  has  been  irresistibly  proved  it  will  happen,  at 
the  charge  and  cost  of  our  own  citizens,  is  a  thing  equally 
beyond  all  justification  and  all  example.  What  is  it  but  to 
tax  our  own  people  for  a  time,  perhaps  for  a  long  time,  in 
order  that  the  French  may  at  last  sell  as  cheap  as  the  English : 
cheaper  they  cannot,  nor  is  it  so  much  as  pretended.  The 
tax  will  be  a  loss  to  us,  and  the  fancied  tendency  of  it  not  a 
gain  to  this  country  in  the  event,  but  to  France.  We  shall 
pay  more  for  a  time,  and  in  the  end  pay  no  less  ;  for  no  object 
but  that  one  nation  may  receive  our  money,  instead  of  the 
other.  If  this  is  generous  towards  France,  it  is  not  just  to 
America.  It  is  sacrificing  what  we  owe  to  our  constituents  to 
what  we  pretend  to  feel  towards  strangers.  We  have  indeed 
heard  a  very  ardent  profession  of  gratitude  to  that  nation,  and 
infinite  reliance  seems  to  be  placed  on  her  readiness  to  sacrifice 
her  interest  to  ours.  The  story  of  this  generous  strife  should 
be  left  to  ornament  fiction.  This  is  not  the  form  nor  the 
occasion  to  discharge  our  obligations  of  any  sort  to  any  foreign 
nation :  it  concerns  not  our  feelings  but  our  interests ;  yet  the 
debate  has  often  soared  high  above  the  smoke  of  business  into 
the  epick  region.  The  market  for  tobacco,  tar,  turpentine. 


MR.  MADISON'S  RESOLUTIONS.  45 

and  pitch  has  become  matter  of  sentiment,  and  given  occasion 
alternately  to  rouse  our  courage  and  our  gratitude. 

IF,  instead  of  hexameters,  we  prefer  discussing  our  relation 
to  foreign  nations  in  the  common  language,  we  shall  not  find, 
that  we  are  bound  by  treaty  to  establish  a  preference  in  favour 
of  the  French.  The  treaty  is  founded  on  a  professed  reciprocity, 
favour  for  favour.  Why  is  the  principle  of  treaty  or  no  treaty- 
made  so  essential,  when  the  favour  we  are  going  to  give  is  an 
act  of  supererogation  ?  It  is  not  expected  by  one  of  the  nations 
in  treaty :  for  Holland  has  declared  in  her  treaty  with  us,  that 
such  preferences  are  the  fruitful  source  of  animosity,  embar 
rassment  and  war.  The  French  have  set  no  such  example. 
They  discriminate,  in  their  late  navigation  act,  not  as  we  are 
exhorted  to  do,  between  nations  in  treaty  and  not  in  treaty,  but 
between  nations  at  war  and  not  at  war  with  them  ;  so  that, 
when  peace  takes  place,  England  will  stand  by  that  act  on  the 
same  ground  with  ourselves.  If  we  expect  by  giving  favour 
to  get  favour  in  return,  it  is  improper  to  make  a  law.  The 
business  belongs  to  the  executive,  in  whose  hands  the  consti 
tution  has  placed  the  power  of  dealing  with  foreign  nations. 
It  is  singular  to  negociate  legislatively ;  to  make  by  a  law  half 
a  bargain,  expecting  a  French  law  would  make  the  other. 
The  footing  of  treaty  or  no  treaty  is  different  from  the  ground 
taken  by  the  mover  himself  in  supporting  his  system.  He  has 
said  favour  for  favour  was  principle  :  nations  not  in  treaty  grant 
favours,  those  in  treaty  restrict  our  trade.  Yet  the  principle 
of  discriminating  in  favour  of  nations  in  treaty,  is  not  only 
inconsistent  with  the  declared  doctrine  of  the  mover  and  with 
facts,  but  it  is  inconsistent  with  itself.  Nations  not  in  treaty 
are  so  very  unequally  operated  upon  by  the  resolutions,  it  is 
absurd  to  refer  them  to  one  principle.  Spain  and  Portugal 
have  no  treaties  with  us,  and  are  not  disposed  to  have  :  Spain 
would  not  accede  to  the  treaty  of  commerce  between  us  and 
France,  though  she  was  invited  :  Portugal  would  not  sign  a 
treaty  after  it  had  been  discussed  and  signed  on  our  part. 
They  have  few  ships  or  manufactures,  and  do  not  feed  their 
colonies  from  us  :  of  course  there  is  little  for  the  discrimina- 


46  SPEECH  OX 

tion  to  operate  upon.  The  operation  on  nations  in  treaty  is 
equally  a  satire  on  the  principle  of  discrimination.  In  Sweden, 
with  whom  we  have  a  treaty,  duties  rise  higher  if  borne  in  our 
bottoms,  than  in  her  own  France  does  the  like,  in  respect  to 
tobacco,  two  and  a  half  livres  the  quintal,  which  in  effect  pro 
hibits  our  vessels  to  freight  tobacco.  The  mover  has,  some 
what  unluckily,  proposed  to  except  from  this  system  nations 
having  no  navigation  acts  ;  in  which  case  France  would  become 
the  subject  of  unfriendly  discrimination,  as  the  house  have 
been  informed  since  the  debate  began,  that  she  has  passed 
such  acts. 

I  MIGHT  remark  on  the  disposition  of  England  to  settle  a 
commercial  treaty,  and  the  known  desire  of  the  marquis  of 
Lansdown  (then  prime  minister),  in  1783,  to  form  such  a  one 
on  the  most  liberal  principles.  The  history  of  that  business, 
and  the  causes  which  prevented  its  conclusion,  ought  to  be 
made  known  to  the  publick.  The  powers  given  to  our  minis 
ters  were  revoked,  and  yet  we  hear,  that  no  such  disposition 
on  the  part  of  Great  Britain  has  existed.  The  declaration  of 
Mr.  Pitt  in  parliament,  in  June,  1792,  as  \vell  as  the  corres 
pondence  with  Mr.  Hammond,  shew  a  desire  to  enter  upon  a 
negociation.  The  statement  of  the  report  of  the  secretary  of 
state,  on  the  privileges  and  restrictions  of  our  commerce,  that 
Great  Britain  has  shewn  no  inclination  to  meddle  with  the 
subject,  seems  to  be  incorrect. 

THE  expected  operation  of  the  resolutions  on  different 
nations,  is  obvious,  and  I  need  not  examine  their  supposed 
tendency  to  dispose  Great  Britain  to  settle  an  equitable  treaty 
with  this  countiy ;  but  I  ask,  whether  those,  who  hold  such 
language  towards  that  nation  as  I  have  heard,  can  be  supposed 
to  desire  a  treaty  and  friendly  connexion.  It  seems  to  be 
thought  a  merit  to  express  hatred  :  it  is  common  and  natural 
to  desire  to  annoy  and  to  crush  those  whom  we  hate,  but  it  is 
somewhat  singular  to  pretend,  that  the  design  of  our  anger  is 
to  embrace  them. 

THE  tendency  of  angry  measures  to  friendly  dispositions  and 
arrangements  is  not  obvious.  We  affect  to  believe,  that  >te 


MR.  MADISON'S  RESOLUTIONS.  4JT 

shall  quarrel  ourselves  into  their  good  will :  we  shall  beat  a 
new  path  to  peace  and  friendship  with  Great  Britain,  one  that 
is  grown  up  with  thorns,  and  lined  with  men-traps  and  spring- 
guns.  It  should  be  called  the  war  path. 

To  do  justice  to  the  subject,  its  promised  advantages  should 
be  examined.  Exciting  the  competition  of  the  French  is  to 
prove  an  advantage  to  this  country,  by  opening  a  new  market 
with  that  nation.  This  is  scarcely  intelligible.  If  it  means 
any  thing,  it  is  an  admission,  that  their  market  is  not  a  good 
one,  or  that  they  have  not  taken  measures  to  favour  our  traffick 
with  them.  In  either  case  our  system  is  absurd.  The  balance 
of  trade  is  against  us,  and  in  favour  of  England.  But  the  reso 
lutions  can  only  aggravate  that  evil,  for,  by  compelling  us  to 
buy  dearer  and  sell  cheaper,  the  balance  will  be  turned  still 
more  against  our  country.  Neither  is  the  supply  from  France 
less  the  aliment  of  luxury,  than  that  from  England.  There, 
excess  of  credit  is  an  evil,  which  we  pretend  to  cure  by  check 
ing  the  natural  growth  of  our  own  capital,  which  is  the  un 
doubted  tendency  of  restraining  trade :  the  progress  of  the 
remedy  is  thus  delayed.  If  we  will  trade,  there  must  be 
capital.  It  is  best  to  have  it  of  our  own  ;  if  we  have  it  not,  we 
must  depend  on  credit.  Wealth  springs  from  the  profits  of 
employment,  and  the  best  writers  on  the  subject  establish  it, 
that  employment  is  in  proportion  to  the  capital,  that  is  to  excite 
and  reward  it.  To  strike  off  credit,  which  is  the  substitute  for 
capital,  if  it  were  possible  to  do  it,  would  so  far  stop  employ 
ment.  Fortunately  it  is  not  possible  ;  the  activity  of  individual 
industry  eludes  the  misjudging  power  of  governments.  The 
resolutions  would,  in  effect,  increase  the  demand  for  credit, 
as  our  products  selling  for  less  in  a  new  market,  and  our 
imports  being  bought  dearer,  there  would  be  less  money  and 
more  need  of  it.  Necessity  would  produce  credit.  Where 
the  laws  are  strict,  it  will  soon  find  its  proper  level ;  the  uses 
of  credit  will  remain,  and  the  evil  will  disappear. 

BUT  the  whole  theory  of  balances  of  trade,  of  helping  it  by 
restraint,  and  protecting  it  by  systems  of  prohibition  and  restric 
tion  against  foreign  nations,  as  well  as  the  remedy  for  credit,  arc 


48  SPEECH  ON 

among  the  exploded  dogmas,  which  are  equally  refuted  by  the 
maxims  of  science  and  the  authority  of  time.  Many  such  topicks 
have  been  advanced,  which  were  known  to  exist  as  prejudices, 
but  were  not  expected  as  arguments.  It  seems  to  be  believed, 
that  the  liberty  of  commerce  is  of  some  value.  Although  there 
are  restrictions  on  one  side,  there  will  be  some  liberty  left :  coun 
ter  restrictions,  by  diminishing  that  liberty,  are  in  their  nature 
aggravations  and  not  remedies.  We  complain  of  the  British 
restrictions  as  of  a  millstone  :  our  own  system  will  be  another ; 
so  that  our  trade  may  hope  to  be  situated  between  the  upper 
and  the  nether  millstone. 

ON  the  whole,  the  resolutions  contain  two  great  principles : 
to  controul  trade  by  law,  instead  of  leaving  it  to  the  better 
management  of  the  merchants  ;  and  the  principle  of  a  sumptu 
ary  law.  To  play  the  tyrant  in  the  counting-house,  and  in 
directing  the  private  expenses  of  our  citizens,  are  employ 
ments  equally  unworthy  of  discussion. 

BESIDES  the  advantages  of  the  system,  we  have  been  called 
to  another  view  of  it,  which  seems  to  have  less  connection 
with  the  merits  of  the  discussion.  The  acts  of  states,  and  the 
votes  of  publick  bodies,  before  the  constitution  was  adopted, 
and  the  votes  of  the  house  since,  have  been  stated  as  grounds 
for  our  assent  to  this  measure  at  this  time.  To  help  our  own 
trade,  to  repel  any  real  or  supposed  attack  upon  it,  cannot  fail 
to  prepossess  the  mind ;  accordingly  the  first  feelings  of  every 
man  yield  to  this  proposition.  But  the  sober  judgment  on  the 
tendency  and  reasonableness  of  the  intermeddling  of  govern 
ment  often  does,  and  probably  ought  still  oftener  to  change  our 
impressions.  On  a  second  view  of  the  question,  the  man,  who 
voted  formerly  for  restrictions,  may  say,  much  has  been  done 
under  the  new  constitution,  and  the  good  effects  are  yet  mak 
ing  progress.  The  necessity  of  measures  of  counter  restriction 
will  appear  to  him  much  less  urgent,  and  their  efficacy  in  the 
present  turbulent  state  of  Europe  infinitely  less  to  be  relied  on. 
Far  from  being  inconsistent  in  his  conduct,  consistency  will 
forbid  his  pressing  the  experiment  of  his  principle  under  cir 
cumstances,  which  baffle  the  hopes  of  its  success.  But  if  so 


MR.  MADISON'S  RESOLUTIONS.  49 

much  stress  is  laid  on  former  opinions,  in  favour  of  this  mea 
sure,  how  happens  it  that  there  is  so  little  on  that,  which  now 
appears  against  it  ?  Not  one  merchant  has  spoken  in  favour  of 
it  in  this  body ;  not  one  navigating  or  commercial  state  has 
patronised  it. 

IT  is  necessary  to  consider  the  dependence  of  the  British 
West-India  islands  on  our  supplies.  I  admit,  that  they  cannot 
draw  them  so  well,  and  so  cheap,  from  any  other  quarter ;  but 
this  is  not  the  point.  Are  they  physically  dependent  ?  Can  we 
starve  them  ;  and  may  we  reasonably  expect,  thus,  to  dictate  to 
Great  Britain  a  free  admission  of  our  vessels  into  her  islands  ? 
A  few  details  will  prove  the  negative.  Beef  and  pork  sent  from 
the  now  United  States  to  the  British  West-Indies,  1773,  four 
teen  thousand  nine  hundred  and  ninety  three  barrels.  In  the 
war  time,  1780,  ditto  from  England,  seventeen  thousand  seven 
hundred  and  ninety  five  :  at  the  end  of  the  war,  1783,  six 
teen  thousand  five  hundred  and  twenty  six.  Ireland  exported, 
on  an  average  of  seven  years  prior  to  1777,  two  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  barrels.  Salted  fish  the  English  take  in  abund 
ance,  and  prohibit  its  importation  from  us.  Butter  and  cheese 
from  England  and  Ireland  are  but  lately  banished  even  from 
our  markets.  Exports  from  the  now  United  States,  1773, 
horses  two  thousand  seven  hundred  and  sixty  eight,  cattle  one 
thousand  two  hundred  and  three,  sheep  and  hogs  five  thousand 
three  hundred  and  twenty.  Twenty  two  years  prior  to  1791, 
were  exported  from  England  to  all  ports,  twenty  nine  thousand 
one  hundred  and  thirty  one  horses.  Ireland,  on  an  average  of 
seven  years  to  1777,  exported  four  thousand  and  forty  live 
stock,  exclusive  of  hogs.  The  coast  of  Barbary,  the  Cape  de 
Verds,  &c.  supply  sheep  and  cattle.  The  islands,  since  the 
war,  have  increased  their  dorhestick  supplies  to  a  great  degree. 

THE  now  United  States  exported  about  one  hundred  and 
thirty  thousand  barrels  of  flour  in  1773  to  the  West-Indies* 
Ireland  by  grazing  less  could  supply  wheat  j  England  herself 
usually  exports  it :  she  also  imports  from  Archangel.  Sicily 
and  the  Barbary  states  furnish  wheat  in  abundance.  Wre  are 
deceived,  when  we  fancy  we  can  starve  foreign  countries. 
7 


50  SPEECH  ON 

France  is  reckoned  to  consume  grain  at  the  rate  of  sevea 
bushels  to  each  soul.  Twenty  six  millions  of  souls,  the  quan 
tity  one  hundred  and  eighty  two  millions  of  bushels.  We 
export,  to  speak  in  round  numbers,  five  or  six  millions  of  bush 
els  to  all  the  different  countries,  which  we  supply  ;  a  trifle 
this  to  their  wants.  Frugality  is  a  greater  resource.  Instead 
of  seven  bushels,  perhaps  two  could  be  saved  by  stinting  the 
consumption  of  the  food  of  cattle,  or  by  the  use  of  other  food. 
Two  bushels  saved  to  each  soul  is  fifty  two  millions  of  bushels, 
a  quantity  which  the  whole  trading  world,  perhaps,  could  not 
furnish.  Rice  is  said  to  be  prohibited  by  Spain  and  Portugal 
to  favour  their  own.  Brasil  could  supply  their  rice  instead  of 
ours. 

LUMBER  ;  I  must  warn  you  of  the  danger  of  despising 
Canada  and  Nova  Scotia  too  much  as  rivals  in  the  West-India 
supply,  especially  the  former.  The  dependence  the  English 
had  placed  on  them  some  years  ago  failed,  partly  because 
we  entered  into  competition  with  them  on  very  superiour 
terms,  and  partly  because  they  were  then  in  an  infant  state. 
They  are  now  supposed  to  have  considerably  more  than  dou 
bled  their  numbers  since  the  peace ;  and  if,  instead  of  having 
us  for  competitors  for  the  supply  as  before,  we  should  shut 
ourselves  out  by  refusing  our  supplies,  or  being  refused  entry 
for  them,  those  two  colonies  would  rise  from  the  ground  :  at 
least  we  should  do  more  to  bring  it  about  than  the  English 
ministry  have  been  able  to  do.  In  1772,  six  hundred  and 
seventy  nine  vessels,  the  actual  tonnage  of  which  was  one 
hundred  and  twenty  eight  thousand,  were  employed  in  the 
West-India  trade  from  Great  Britain.  They  were  supposed, 
on  good  ground,  to  be  but  half  freighted  to  the  islands :  they 
might  carry  lumber,  and  the  freight  supposed  to  be  deficient 
would  be,  at  forty  shillings  sterling  the  ton,  one  hundred  and 
twenty  eight  thousand  pounds  sterling.  This  sum  would 
diminish  the  extra  charge  of  carrying  lumber  to  the  islands. 
But  is  lumber  to  be  had  ?  Yes,  in  Germany,  and  from  the 
Raltick.  It  is  even  cheaper  in  Europe  than  our  own.  Besides 


MR.  MADISON'S  RESOLUTIONS.  51 

which,  the  hard  woods  used  in  mills  are  abundant  in  the 
islands. 

WE  are  told  they  can  sell  their  rum  only  to  the  United 
States.  This  concerns  not  their  subsistence,  but  their  profit. 
Examine  it  however.  In  1773,  the  now  United  States  took 
near  three  million  gallons  of  rum.  The  remaining  British 
colonies,  Newfoundland  and  the  African  coast,  have  a  con 
siderable  demand  for  this  article.  The  demand  of  Ireland  is 
very  much  on  the  increase.  It  was  in  1763,  five  hundred  and 
thirty  thousand  gallons  ;  1770,  one  million  five  hundred  and 
fifty  eight  thousand  gallons  ;  1778,  one  million  seven  hundred 
and  twenty  nine  thousand  gallons. 

THUS  we  see,  a  total  stoppage  of  the  West-India  trade 
would  not  starve  the  islanders.  It  would  affect  us  deeply ; 
we  should  lose  the  sale  of  our  products,  and,  of  course,  not 
gain  the  carriage  in  our  own  vessels  :  the  object  of  the  contest 
would  be  no  nearer  our  reach  than  before.  Instead,  however, 
of  a  total  stoppage  of  the  intercourse,  it  might  happen,  that, 
each  nation  prohibiting  the  vessels  of  the  other,  some  third 
nation  would  carry  on  the  traffick  in  its  own  bottoms.  WThile 
this  measure  would  disarm  our  system,  it  would  make  it  recoil 
upon  ourselves.  It  would,  in  effect,  operate  chiefly  to  obstruct 
the  sale  of  our  products.  If  they  should  remain  unsold,  it 
would  be  so  much  dead  loss  ;  or  if  the  effect  should  be  to  raise 
the  price  on  the  consumers,  it  would  either  lessen  the  con 
sumption,  or  raise  up  rivals  in  the  supply.  The  contest,  as  it 
respects  the  West-India  trade,  is  in  every  respect  against  us. 
To  embarrass  the  supply  from  the  United  States,  supposing 
the  worst  as  it  regards  the  planters,  can  do  no  more  than 
enhance  the  price  of  sugar,  coffee,  and  other  products.  The 
French  islands  are  now  in  ruins,  and  the  English  planters 
have  an  increased  price  and  double  demand  in  consequence. 
While  Great  Britain  confined  the  colony  trade  to  herself,  she 
gave  to  the  colonists  in  return  a  monopoly  in  her  consumption 
of  West-India  articles.  The  extra  expense,  arising  from  the 
severest  operation  of  our  system,  is  already  provided  against 


52  SPEECH  ON 

two  fold  :  like  other  charges  on  the  products  of  labour  and 
capital,  the  burden  will  fall  on  the  consumer.  The  luxurious 
and  opulent  consumer  in  Europe  will  not  regard,  and  perhaps 
will  not  know,  the  increase  of  price  nor  the  cause  of  it.  The 
new  settler,  who  clears  his  land  and  sells  the  lumber,  will  feel 
any  convulsion  in  the  market  more  sensibly,  without  being 
able  to  sustain  it  at  all.  It  is  a  contest  of  wealth  against  want 
of  self-denial,  between  luxury  and  daily  subsistence,  that  we 
provoke  with  so  much  confidence  of  success.  A  man  of  ex 
perience  in  the  West-India  trade  will  see  this  contrast  more 
strongly  than  it  is  possible  to  represent  it. 

ONE  of  the  excellences,  for  which  the  measure  is  recom 
mended,  is,  that  it  will  affect  our  imports.  What  is  offered  as 
an  argument  is  really  an  objection.  Who  will  supply  our 
wants  ?  Our  own  manufactures  are  growing,  and  it  is  a  subject 
of  great  satisfaction  that  they  are.  But  it  would  be  wrong  to 
over-rate  their  capacity  to  clothe  us.  The  same  number  of 
inhabitants  require  more  and  more,  because  wealth  increases. 
Add  to  this  the  rapid  growth  of  our  numbers,  and  perhaps  it 
will  be  correct  to  estimate  the  progress  of  manufacturers  as 
only  keeping  pace  with  that  of  our  increasing  consumption 
and  population.  It  follows,  that  we  shall  continue  to  demand 
in  future  to  the  amount  of  our  present  importation.  It  is  not 
intended  by  the  resolutions,  that  we  shall  import  from  Eng 
land.  Holland  and  the  north  of  Europe  do  not  furnish  a  suf 
ficient  variety,  or  sufficient  quantity  for  our  consumption.  It 
is  in  vain  to  look  to  Spain,  Portugal,  and  the  Italian  States. 
We  are  expected  to  depend  principally  upon  France :  it  is 
impossible  to  examine  the  ground  of  this  dependence  without 
adverting  to  the  present  situation  of  that  country.  It  is  a 
subject,  upon  whhh  I  practise  no  disguise  ;  but  I  do  not  think 
it  proper  to  introduce  the  politicks  of  France  into  this  discus 
sion.  If  others  can  find  in  the  scenes  that  pass  there,  or  in 
the  principles  and  agents  that  direct  them,  proper  subjects  for 
amiable  names,  and  sources  of  joy  and  hope  in  the  prospect,  I 
have  nothing  to  say  to  it :  it  is  an  amusement,  which  it  is  not 


MR.  MADISON'S  RESOLUTIONS,  53 

my  intention  either  to  disturb  or  to  partake  of.  I  turn  from 
these  horrours  to  examine  the  condition  of  France  in  respect  to 
manufacturing,  capital,  and  industry.  In  this  point  of  view, 
whatever  political  improvements  may  be  hoped  for.  it  cannot 
escape  observation,  that  it  presents  only  a  wide  field  of  waste 
and  desolation.  Capital,  which  used  to  be  food  for  manufac 
tures,  is  become  their  fuel.  What  once  ndurished  industry 
now  lights  the  fires  of  civil  war,  and  quickens  the  progress  of 
destruction.  France  is  like  a  ship  with  a  fine  cargo  burning 
to  the  water's  edge  ;  she  may  be  built  upon  anew,  and  freighted 
with  another  cargo,  and  it  will  be  time  enough,  when  that 
shall  be,  to  depend  on  a  part  of  it  for  our  supply :  at  present, 
and  for  many  years,  she  will  not  be  so  much  a  furnisher  as  a 
consumer.  It  is  therefore  obvious,  that  we  shall  import  our 
supplies  either  directly  or  indirectly  from  Great  Britain.  Any 
obstruction  to  the  importation  will  raise  the  price  which  we, 
who  consume,  must  bear. 

THAT  part  of  the  argument,  which  rests  on  the  supposed 
distress  of  the  British  manufacturers,  in  consequence  of  the 
loss  of  our  market,  is  in  every  view  unfounded.  They  would 
not  lose  the  market  in  fact,  and  if  they  did,  we  prodigiously 
exaggerate  the  importance  of  our  consumption  to  the  British 
workmen.  Important  it  doubtless  is,  but  a  little  attention  will 
expose  the  extreme  folly  of  the  opinion,  that  they  would  be 
brought  to  our  feet  by  a  trial  of  our  self-denying  spirit.  Eng 
land  now  supplants  France  in  the  important  Levant  trade,  in 
the  supply  of  manufactured  goods  to  the  East,  and,  in  a  great 
measure,  to  the  West-Indies,  to  Spain,  Portugal,  and  their 
dependencies.  Her  trade  with  Russia  has,  of  late,  vastly  in 
creased  ;  and  she  is  treating  for  a  trade  with  China :  so  that 
the  new  demands  of  English  manufactures,  consequent  upon 
the  depression  of  France  as  a  rival,  has  amounted  to  much 
more  than  the  whole  American  importation,  which  is  not  three 
millions. 

THE  ill  effect  of  a  system  of  restriction  and  prohibition  in 
the  West-Indies  has  been  noticed  already.  The  privileges 


54  SPEECH  ON 

allowed  to  our  exports  to  England  may  be  withdrawn,  and 
prohibitory  or  high  duties  imposed. 

THE  system  before  us  is  a  mischief,  that  goes  to  the  root  of 
our  prosperity.  The  merchants  will  suffer  by  the  schemes 
and  projects  of  a  new  theory.  Great  numbers  were  ruined  by 
the  convulsions  of  1775.  They  are  an  order  of  citizens  de 
serving  better  of  government,  than  to  be  involved  in  new  con 
fusions.  It  is  wrong  to  make  our  trade  wage  war  for  our 
politicks.  It  is  now  scarcely  said,  that  it  is  a  thing  to  be 
sought  for,  but  a  weapon  to  fight  with.  To  gain  our  approba 
tion  to  the  system,  we  are  told  it  is  to  be  gradually  established. 
In  that  case,  it  will  be  unavailing.  It  should  be  begun  with 
in  all  its  strength,  if  we  think  of  starving  the  islands.  Drive 
them  suddenly  and  by  surprise  to  extremity,  if  you  would 
dictate  terms ;  but  they  will  prepare  against  a  long-expected 
failure  of  our  supplies. 

OUR  nation  will  be  tired  of  suffering  loss  and  embarrassment 
for  the  French.  The  struggle,  so  painful  to  ourselves,  so 
ineffectual  against  England,  will  be  renounced,  and  we  shall 
sit  down  with  shame  and  loss,  with  disappointed  passions  and 
aggravated  complaints.  War,  which  \vould  then  suit  our  feel 
ings,  would  not  suit  our  weakness.  We  might  perhaps  find 
some  European  power  willing  to  make  war  on  England,  and  we 
might  be  permitted  by  a  strict  alliance  to  partake  ihe  misery 
and  the  dependence  of  being  a  subaltern  in  the  quarrel.  The 
happiness  of  this  situation  seems  to  be  in  view,  when  the 
system  before  us  is  avowed  to  be  the  instrument  of  avenging 
our  political  resentments.  Those,  who  affect  to  dread  foreign 
influence,  will  do  well  to  avoid  a  partnership  in  European 
jealousies  and  rivalships.  Courting  the  friendship  of  the  one, 
and  provoking  the  hatred  of  the  other,  is  dangerous  to  our 
real  independence  ;  for  it  would  compel  America  to  throw 
herself  into  the  arms  of  the  one  for  protection  against  the. 
other.  Then  foreign  influence,  pernicious  as  it  is,  would  be 
sought  for ;  and  though  it  should  be  shunned,  it  could  not  be 
resisted.  The  connections  of  trade  form  ties  between  indivi- 


MR.  MADISON'S  RESOLUTIONS.  55 

duals,  and  produce  little  controul  over  government.  They  are 
the  ties  of  peace,  and  are  neither  corrupt  nor  corrupting. 

WE  have  happily  escaped  from  a  state  of  the  most  imminent 
danger  to  our  peace  :  a  false  step  would  lose  all  the  security 
for  its  continuance,  which  we  owe  at  this  moment  to  the  con 
duct  of  the  president.  What  is  to  save  us  from  war  ?  Not  our 
own  power  which  inspires  no  terrour ;  not  the  gentle  and  for 
bearing  spirit  of  the  powers  of  Europe  at  this  crisis  ;  not  the 
weakness  of  England ;  not  her  affection  for  this  country,  if  we 
believe  the  assurances  of  gentlemen  on  the  other  side.  What 
is  it  then  ?  It  is  the  interest  of  Great  Britain  to  have  America 
for  a  customer,  rather  than  an  enemy :  and  it  is  precisely  that 
interest,  which  gentlemen  are  so  eager  to  take  away,  and  to 
transfer  to  Erance.  And  what  is  stranger  still,  they  say,  they 
rely  on  that  operation  as  a  means  of  producing  peace  with  the 
Indians  and  Algerines.w  The  wounds,  inflicted  on  Great  Britain 
by  our  enmity,  are  expected  to  excite  her  to  supplicate  our 
friendship,  and  to  appease  us  by  soothing  the  animosity  of  our 
enemies.  What  is  to  produce  effects  so  mystical,  so  opposite 
to  nature,  so  much  exceeding  the  efficacy  of  their  pretended 
causes  ?  This  wonder-working  paper  on  the  table  is  the  weapon 
of  terrour  and  destruction :  like  the  writing  on  Belshazzer's 
wall,  it  is  to  strike  parliaments  and  nations  with  dismay :  it 
is  to  be  stronger  than  fleets  against  pirates,  or  than  armies 
against  Indians.  After  the  examination  it  has  undergone, 
credulity  itself  will  laugh  at  these  pretensions.  • 

WE  pretend  to  expect,  not  by  the  force  of  our  restrictions, 
but  by  the  mere  shew  of  our  spirit,  to  level  all  the  fences,  that 
have  guarded  for  ages  the  monopoly  of  the  colony  trade.  The 
repeal  of  the  navigation  act  of  England,  which  is  cherished  as 
the  palladium  of  her  safety,  which  time  has  rendered  venera 
ble,  and  prosperity  endeared  to  her  people,  is  to  be  extorted, 
from  her  fears  of  a  weaker  nation.  It  is  not  to  be  yielded 
freely,  but  violently  torn  from  her;  and  yet  the  idea  of  a 
struggle  to  prevent  indignity  and  loss,  is  considered  as  a 
chimera  too  ridiculous  for  sober  refutation.  She  will  not  dare. 


56  SPEECH  ON 

say  they,  to  resent  it ;  and  gentlemen  have  pledged  themselves 
for  the  success  of  the  attempt :  what  is  treated  as  a  phantom 
is  vouched  by  fact.  Her  navigation  act  is  known  to  have 
caused  an  immediate  contest  with  the  Dutch,  and  four  des 
perate  sea  fights  ensued,  in  consequence,  the  very  year  of  its 
passage. 

How  far  it  is  an  act  of  aggression,  for  a  neutral  nation  to 
assist  the  supplies  of  one  neighbour,  and  to  annoy  and  distress 
another,  at  the  crisis  of  a  contest  between  the  two,  which  strains 
their  strength  to  the  utmost,  is  a  question,  which  we  might 
not  agree  in  deciding ;  but  the  tendency  cf  such  unseasonable 
partiality  to  exasperate  the  spirit  of  hostility  against  the  in 
truder  cannot  be  doubted.  The  language  of  the  French 
government  would  not  sooth  this  spirit.  It  proposes,  on  the 
sole  condition  of  a  political  connection,  to  extend  to  us  a  part 
of  their  West-India  commerce.  The  coincidence  of  our  mea 
sures  with  their  invitation,  however  singular,  needs  no  com 
ment.  Of  all  men  those  are  least  consistent,  who  believe  in 
the  efficacy  of  the  regulations,  and  yet  affect  to  ridicule  their 
hostile  tendency.  In  the  commercial  conflict,  say  they,  we 
shall  surely  prevail  and  effectually  humble  Great  Britain. 

IN  open  war  we  are  the  weaker,  and  shall  be  brought  into 
danger,  if  not  to  ruin.  It  depends,  therefore,  according  to 
their  own  reasoning,  on  Great  Britain  herself,  whether  she 
will  persist  in  a  struggle,  which  will  disgrace  and  weaken  her, 
or  turn  it  into  a  war,  which  will  throw  the  shame  and  ruin 
upon  her  antagonist.  The  topicks,  which  furnish  arguments 
to  shew  the  danger  to  our  peace  from  the  resolutions,  are  too 
fruitful  to  be  exhausted.  But  without  pursuing  them  further, 
the  experience  of  mankind  has  shewn,  that  commercial  rival- 
ships,  which  spring  from  mutual  efforts  for  monopoly,  have 
kindled  more  wars,  and  wasted  the  earth  more,  than  the  spirit 
of  conquest. 

I  HOPE  we  shall  shew  by  our  vote,  that  we  deem  it  better 
policy  to  feed  nations  than  to  starve  them,  and  that  we  shall 
never  be  so  unwise  as  to  put  our  good  customers  into  a  situa- 


>MR.  MADISON'S  RESOLUTIONS,  5? 

tion  to  be  forced  to  make  every  exertion  to  do  without  us.  By- 
cherishing  the  arts  of  peace,  we  shall  acquire,  and  we  arc 
actually  acquiring  the  strength  and  resources  for  a  war.  In- 
stead  of  seeking  treaties,  we  ought  to  shun  them  ;  for  the  later 
they  shall  be  formed,  the  better  will  be  the  terms :  we  shall 
have  more  to  give,  and  more  to  withhold.  We  have  not  yet 
taken  our  proper  rank,  nor  acquired  that  consideration,  which 
will  not  be  refused  us,  if  we  persist  in  prudent  and  pacifick 
counsels,  if  we  give  time  for  our  strength  to  mature  itself. 
Though  America  is  rising  with  a  giant's  strength,  its  bones 
are  yet  but  cartilages.  By  delaying  the  beginning  of  a  conflict, 
we  insure  the  victory. 

BY  voting  out  the  resolutions,  we  shall  shew  to  our  own* 
citizens,  and  foreign  nations,  that  our  prudence  has  prevailed 
over  our  prejudices,  that  we  prefer  our  interests  to  our  resent 
ments.  Let  us  assert  a  genuine  independence  of  spirit :  we 
shall  be  false  to  our  duty  and  feelings  as  Americans,  if  we 
basely  descend  to  a  servile  dependence  on  France  or  Great 
Britain. 


SPEECH 

IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES, 
IN  SUPPORT  OF  THE  FOLLOWING  MOTION  : 

RESOLVED,  That  it  is  expedient  to  pass  the  laws  necessary  to  carry 
into  effect  the  treaty  lately  concluded  between  the  United  States 
and  the  king  of  Great  Britain. 

DELIVERED    APRIL    28,  17Q6. 

1  ENTERTAIN  the  hope,  perhaps  a  rash  one,  that  my  strength 
will  hold  me  out  to  speak  a  few  minutes. 

IN  my  judgment,  a  right  decision  will  depend  more  on  the 
temper  and  manner,  with  which  we  may  prevail  upon  our 
selves  to  contemplate  the  subject,  than  upon  the  developement 
of  any  profound  political  principles,  or  any  remarkable  skill  in 
the  application  of  them.  If  we  could  succeed  to  neutralize 
our  inclinations,  we  should  find  less  difficulty  than  we  have  to 
apprehend  in  surmounting  all  our  objections. 

THE  suggestion,  a  few  days  ago,  that  the  house  manifested 
symptoms  of  heat  and  irritation,  was  made  and  retorted  as  if 
the  charge  ought  to  create  surprise)  and  would  convey  reproach. 
Let  us  be  more  just  to  ourselves  and  to  the  occasion.  Let 
us  not  affect  to  deny  the  existence  and  the  intrusion  of  some 
portion  of  prejudice  and  feeling  into  the  debate,  when,  from 
the  very  structure  of  our  nature,  we  ought  to  anticipate  the 
circumstance  as  a  probability,  and  when  we  are  admonish 
ed  by  the  evidence  of  our  senses  that  it  is  a  fact.  How  can  we 
make  professions  for  ourselves,  and  offer  exhortations  to  the 
house,  that  no  influence  should  be  felt  but  that  of  duty,  and  no 
guide  respected  but  that  of  the  understanding,  while  the  peal 
to  rally  every  passion  of  man  is  continually  ringing  in  our 
ears.  Our  understandings  have  been  addressed,  it  is  true, 
and  with  ability  and  effect ;  but,  I  demand,  has  any  corner  of 
the  heart  been  left  unexplored  ?  It  has  been  ransacked  to  find 


SPEECH  ON  THE  BRITISH  TREATY.  59- 

auxiliary  arguments ;  and,  when  that  attempt  failed,  to  awaken 
the  sensibility,  that  would  require  none.  Every  prejudice 
and  feeling  has  been  summoned  to  listen  to  some  peculiar 
style  of  address  ;  and  yet  we  seem  to  believe,  and  to  consider 
a  doubt  as  an  affront,  that  we  are  strangers  to  any  influence 
but  that  of  unbiassed  reason. 

IT  would  be  strange,  that  a  subject,  which  has  roused  in 
turn  all  the  passions  of  the  country,  should  be  discussed 
without  the  interference  of  any  of  our  own.  We  are  me'1, 
and  therefore  not  exempt  from  those  passions  :  as  citizens 
and  representatives,  we  feel  the  interest  that  must  excite 
them.  The  hazard  of  great  interests  cannot  fail  to  agitate 
strong  passions  :  we  are  not  disinterested  ;  it  is  impossible 
we  should  be  dispassionate.  The  warmth  of  such  feelings 
may  becloud  the  judgment,  and,  for  a  time,  pervert  the 
understanding.  But  the  publick  sensibility,  and  our  own, 
has  sharpened  the  spirit  of  inquiry,  and  given  an  animation 
to  the  debate.  The  publick  attention  has  been  quickened 
to  mark  the  progress  of  the  discussion,  and  its  judgment, 
often  hasty  and  erroneous  on  first  impressions,  has  become 
solid  and  enlightened  at  last.  Our  result  will,  I  hope,  on. 
that  account,  be  the  safer  and  more  mature,  as  well  as  more 
accordant  with  that  of  the  nation.  The  only  constant  agents 
in  political  affairs  are  the  passions  of  men.  Shall  we  com 
plain  of  our  nature ;  shall  we  say  that  man  ought  to  have 
been  made  otherwise.  It  is  right  already,  because  HE,  from 
whom  we  derive  our  nature,  ordained  it  so  ;  and  because, 
thus  made  and  thus  acting,  the  cause  of  truth  and  the  publick 
good  is  the  more  surely  promoted. 

BUT  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  produce  an  influence 
of  a  nature  more  stubborn,  and  more  unfriendly  to  truth.  It 
is  very  unfairly  pretended,  that  the  constitutional  right  of 
this  house  is  at  stake,  and  to  b3  asserted  and  preserved  only 
by  a  vote  in  the  negative.  We  hear  it  said,  that  this  is  a 
struggle  for  liberty,  a  manly  resistance  against  the  design 
to  nullify  this  assembly,  and  to  make  it  a  cypher  in  the 


60"  SPEECfH  ON  THE 

government :  that  the  president  and  senate,  the  numerous, 
meetings  in  the  cities,  and  the  influence  of  the  general 
alarm  of  the  country,  are  the  agents  and  instruments  of  a 
scheme  of  coercion  and  terrour,  to  force  the  treaty  down 
our  throats,  though  we  loath  it,  and  in  spite  of  the  clearest 
convictions  of  duty  and  conscience. 

IT  is  necessary  to  pause  here,  and  inquire,  whether  sug 
gestions  of  this  kind  be  not  unfair  in  their  very  texture  and 
fabrick,  and  pernicious  in  all  their  influences.  They  oppose 
an  obstacle  in  the  path  of  inquiry,  not  simply  discouraging, 
but  absolutely  insurmountable.  They  will  not  yield  to  argu 
ment  ;  for,  as  they  were  not  reasoned  up,  they  cannot  be 
reasoned  down.  They  are  higher  than  a  Chinese  wall  in 
truth's  way,  and  built  of  materials  that  are  indestructible. 
While  this  remains,  it  is  vain  to  say  to  this  mountain,  be 
thou  cast  into  the  sea.  For  I  ask  of  the  men  of  knowledge 
of  the  world,  whether  they  would  not  hold  him  for  a  block 
head,  that  should  hope  to  prevail  in  an  argument,  whose 
scope  and  object  it  is  to  mortify  the  self-love  of  the  expected 
proselyte  ?  I  ask  further,  when  such  attempts  have  been 
made,  have  they  not  failed  of  success  ?  The  indignant  heart 
repels  a  conviction,  that  is  believed  to  debase  it. 

THE  self-love  of  an  individual  is  not  warmer  in  its  sense, 
nor  more  constant  in  its  action,  than  what  is  called  in  French 
1'esprit  du  corps,  or  the  self-love  of  an  assembly  ;  that  jealous 
affection  which  a  body  of  men  is  always  found  to  bear  towards 
its  own  prerogatives  and  power.  I  will  not  condemn  this  pas 
sion.  Why  should  we  urge  an  unmeaning  censure,  or  yield 
to  groundless  fears  that  truth  and  duty  will  be  abandoned, 
because  men  in  a  publick  assembly  are  still  men,  and  feel 
that  esprit  du  corps  which  is  one  of  the  laws  of  their  nature  ? 
Still  less  should  we  despond  or  complain,  if  we  reflect,  that 
this  very  spirit  is  a  guardian  instinct  that  watches  over  the 
life  of  this  assembly.  It  cherishes  the  principle  of  self- 
preservation,  and  without  its  existence,  and  its  existence 
with  all  the  strength  we  see  it  possess,  the  privileges  of  the 


BRITISH  TREATY.  61 

representatives  of  the  people,  and,  mediately,  the  liberty  of 
the  people  would  not  be  guarded,  as  they  are,  with  a  vigi 
lance  that  never  sleeps,  and  an  unrelaxing  constancy  and 
courage. 

IF  the  consequences  most  unfairly  attributed  to  the  vote 
in  the  affirmative  were  not  chimerical,  and  worse,  for  they 
are  deceptive,  I  should  think  it  a  reproach  to  be  found  even 
moderate  in  my  zeal  to  assert  the  constitutional  powers  of 
this  assembly ;  and  whenever  they  shall  be  in  real  danger, 
the  present  occasion  affords  proof,  that  there  will  be  no  want 
of  advocates  and  champions. 

INDEED  so  prompt  are  these  feelings,  and,  when  once 
roused,  so  difficult  to  pacify,  that,  if  we  could  prove  the 
alarm  was  groundless,  the  prejudice  against  the  appropria 
tions  may  remain  on  the  mind,  and  it  may  even  pass  for  an 
act  of  prudence  and  duty  to  negative  a  measure,  which  was 
lately  believed  by  ourselves,  and  may  hereafter  be  miscon 
ceived  by  others,  to  encroach  upon  the  powers  of  the  house. 
Principles  that  bear  a  remote  affinity  with  usurpation  on 
those  powers  will  be  rejected,  not  merely  as  errours,  but  as 
wrongs.  Our  sensibility  will  shrink  from  a  post,  where  it 
is  possible  it  may  be  wounded,  and  be  inflamed  by  the  slight 
est  suspicion  of  an  assault. 

WHILE  these  prepossessions  remain,  all  argument  is  use 
less  :  it  may  be  heard  with  the  ceremony  of  attention,  and 
lavish  its  own  resources,  and  the  patience  it  wearies  to  no 
manner  of  purpose.  The  ears  may  be  open,  but  the  mind 
will  remain  locked  up,  and  every  pass  to  the  understanding 
guarded.  Unless  therefore  this  jealous  and  repulsive  fear 
for  the  rights  of  the  house  can  be  allayed,  I  will  not  ask  a 
hearing. 

I  CANNOT  press  this  topick  too  far  ;  I  cannot  address  my 
self  with  too  much  emphasis  to  the  magnanimity  and  can 
dour  of  those  who  sit  here,  to  suspect  their  own  feelings, 
and,  while  they  do,  to  examine  the  grounds  of  their  alarm „ 
I  repeat  it,  we  must  conquer  our  persuasion,  that  this  body 


62  SPEECH  OX  THE 

has  an  interest  in  one  side  of  the  question  more  than  the 
other,  before  \ve  attempt  to  surmount  our  objections.  On 
most  subjects,  and  solemn  ones  too,  perhaps  in  the  most 
solemn  of  all,  we  form  our  creed  more  from  inclination 
than  evidence. 

LET  me  expostulate  \viih  gentlemen  to  admit,  if  it  be  only 
by  way  of  supposition,  and  for  a  moment,  that  it  is  barely 
possible  they  have  yielded  too  suddenly  to  their  alarms  for 
the  powers  of  this  house ;  that  the  addresses,  which  have 
been  made  with  such  variety  of  forms,  and  with  so  great 
dexterity  in  some  of  them,  to  all  that  is  prejudice  and  passion 
in  the  heart,  are  either  the  effects  or  the  instruments  of 
artifice  and  deception,  and  then  let  them  see  the  subject 
once  more  in  its  singleness  and  simplicity. 

IT  will  be  impossible,  on  taking  a  fair  review  of  the  sub 
ject,  to  justify  the  passionate  appeals  that  have  been  made 
to  us,  to  struggle  for  our  liberties  and  rights,  and  the  solemn 
exhortations  to  reject  the  proposition,  said  to  be  concealed 
in  that  on  your  table,  to  surrender  them  for  ever.  In  spite 
of  this  mock  solemnity,  I  demand,  if  the  house  will  not  con 
cur  in  the  measure  to  execute  the  treaty,  what  other  course 
shall  we  take  I  How  many  ways  of  proceeding  lie  open  be 
fore  us  ? 

IN  the  nature  of  things,  there  are  but  three  :  we  are  either 
to  make  the  treaty,  to  observe  it,  or  break  it.  It  would  be 
absurd  to  say,  we  will  do  neither.  If  I  may  repeat  a  phrase 
already  so  much  abused,  we  are  under  coercion  to  do  one  of 
them ;  and  we  have  no  power,  by  the  exercise  of  our  discre 
tion,  to  prevent  the  consequences  of  a  choice. 

BY  refusing  to  act,  we  choose  :  the  treaty  will  be  broken 
and  fall  to  the  ground.  Where  is  the  fitness  then  of  reply 
ing  to  those  who  urge  upon  the  house  the  topicks  of  duty 
and  policy,  that  they  attempt  to  force  the  treaty  down,  and 
to  compel  this  assembly  to  renounce  its  discretion,  and  to 
degrade  itself  to  the  rank  of  a  blind  and  passive  instrument 
in  the  hands  of  the  treaty-making  power.  In  case  we  reject 


BRITISH  TREATY.  63 

the  appropriation,  we  do  not  secure  any  greater  liberty  of 
action,  we  gain  no  safer  shelter  than  before  from  the  conse 
quences  of  the  decision.  Indeed  they  are  not  to  be  evaded. 
It  is  neither  just  nor  manly  to  complain,  that  the  treaty- 
making  power  has  produced  this  coercion  to  act:  it  is  not 
the  art  or  the  despotism  of  that  power,  it  is  the  nature  of  | 
things,  that  compels.  Shall  we,  dreading  to  become  the 
blind  instruments  of  power,  yield  ourselves  the  blinder  dupes 
of  mere  sounds  of  imposture  ?  Yet  that  word,  that  empty 
word,  coercion,  has  given  scope  to  an  eloquence,  that  one 
would  imagine  could  not  be  tired,  and  did  not  choose  to  be 
quieted. 

LET  us  examine  still  more  in  detail  the  alternatives  that 
ave  before  us,  and  we  shall  scarcely  fail  to  see  in  still  stronger 
lights  the  futility  of  our  apprehensions  for  the  power  and 
liberty  of  the  house. 

IF,  as  some  have  suggested,  the  thing,  called  a  treaty, 
is  incomplete,  if  it  has  no  binding  force  or  obligation,  the 
first  question  is,  will  this  house  complete  the  instrument,  and, 
by  concurring,  impart  to  it  that  force  which  it  wants. 

THE  doctrine  has  been  avowed,  that  the  treaty,  though 
formally  ratified' by  the  executive  power  of  both  nations, 
though  published  as  a  law  for  our  own  by  the  president's 
proclamation,  is  still  a  mere  proposition  submitted  to  this 
assembly,  no  way  distinguishable  in  point  of  authority  or 
obligation  from  a  motion  for  leave  to  bring  in  a  bill,  or 
any  other  original  act  of  ordinary  legislation.  This  doctrine, 
so  novel  in  our  country,  yet  so  dear  to  many  precisely  for 
the  reason,  that  in  the  contention  for  power  victory  is  always 
dear,  is  obviously  repugnant  to  the  very  terms  as  well  as 
the  fair  interpretation  of  our  own  resolution.  (Mr.  Blount's.) 
We  declare,  that  the  treaty-making  power  is  exclusively 
vested  in  the  president  and  senate,  and  not  in  this  house. 
Need  I  say,  that  we  fly  in  the  face  of  that  resolution,  when 
we  pretend,  that  the  acts  of  that  power  are  not  valid,  until 
we  hare  concurred  in  them.  It  would  be  nonsense,  or  ^Yorsc, 


64  SPKEdH  ON  T1IB 

to  use  the  language  of  the  most  glaring  contradiction,  ancl 
to  claim  a  share  in  a  power,  which  we  at  the  same  time  dis 
claim,  as  exclusively  vested  in  other  departments.  What 
can  be  more  strange  than  to  say,  that  the  compacts  of  the 
president  and  senate  with  foreign  nations  are  treaties,  without 
our  agency,  ancf  yet  that  those  compacts  want  all  power  and 
obligation,  until  they  are  sanctioned  by  our  concurrence.  It  is 
not  my  design  in  this  place,  if  at  all,  to  go  into  the  discussion 
of  this  part  of  the  subject.  I  will,  at  least  for  the  present, 
take  it  for  granted,  that  this  monstrous  opinion  stands  in  little 
need  of  remark,  and,  if  it  does,  lies  almost  out  of  the  reach 
of  refutation. 

BUT,  say  those  who  hide  the  absurdity  under  the  cover  of 
ambiguous  phrases,  have  we  no  discretion  ?  and  if  we  have, 
are  we  not  to  make  use  of  it  in  judging  of  the  expediency  or 
inexpediency  of  the  treaty  ?  Our  resolution  claims  that 
privilege,  and  we  cannot  surrender  it  without  equal  inconsist 
ency  and  breach  of  duty. 

IF  there  be  any  inconsistency  in  this  case,  it  lies  not  in 
making  the  appropriations  for  the  treaty,  but  in  the  resolu 
tion  itself.  Let  us  examine  it  more  nearly.  A  treaty  is  a 
bargain  between  nations,  binding  in  good  faith  :  and  what 
makes  a  bargain  ?  The  assent  of  the  contracting  parties. 
We  allow,  that  the  treaty  power  is  not  in  this  house ;  this 
house  has  no  share  in  contracting,  and  is  not  a  party  :  of 
consequence  the  president  and  senate  alone  may  make  a 
treaty  that  is  binding  in  good  faith.  We  claim,  however, 
say  the  gentlemen,  a  right  to  judge  of  the  expediency  of 
treaties  ;  that  is  the  constitutional  province  of  our  discretion. 
Be  it  so.  What  follows  ?  Treaties,  when  adjudged  by  us  to 
be  inexpedient,  fall  to  the  ground,  and  the  publick  faith  is 
not  hurt.  This,  incredible  and  extravagant  as  it  may  seem, 
is  asserted.  The  amount  of  it,  in  plainer  language,  is  this, 
the  president  and  senate  are  to  make  national  bargains,  and 
this  house  has  nothing  to  do  in  making  them.  But  bad  bar 
gains  do  not  bind  this  house,  and  of  inevitable  consequence* 


BRITISH  TREATY.  65 

tto  not  bind  the  nation.  When  a  national  bargain,  called  a 
treaty,  is  made,  its  binding  force  does  not  depend  on  the 
making,  but  upon  our  opinion  that  it  is  good.  As  our 
opinion  on  the  matter  can  be  known  and  declared  only  by 
ourselves,  when  sitting  in  our  legislative  capacity,  the  treaty, 
though  ratified,  and,  as  we  choose  to  term  it,  made,  is  hung 
up  in  suspense,  till  our  sense  is  ascertained.  We  condemn 
the  bargain,  and  it  falls,  though,  as  we  say,  our  f  ith  does 
not.  We  approve  a  bargain  as  expedient,  and  it  stands  firm, 
and  binds  the  nation.  Yet,  even  in  this  latter  case,  its  force 
is  plainly  not  derived  from  the  ratification  by  the  treaty- 
makino:  power,  but  from  our  approbation.  Who  will  trace 
these  inferences,  and  pretend,  that  we  have  no  share,  accord 
ing  to  the  argument,  in  the  treaty-making  power  ?  These 
opinions,  nevertheless,  have  been  advocated  with  infinite 
zeal  and  perseverance.  Is  it  possible  that  any  man  can  be 
hardy  enough  to  avow  them,  and  their  ridiculous  conse 
quences  ? 

LET  me  hasten  to  suppose  the  treaty  is  considered  as  al 
ready  made,  and  then  the  alternative  is  fairly  present  to  the 
mind,  whether  he  will  observe  the  treaty,  or  break  it.  This, 
in  fact,  is  the  naked  question. 

IF  we  choose  to  observe  it  with  good  faith,  our  course  is 
obvious.  Whatever  is  stipulated  to  be  done  by  the  nation, 
must  be  complied  with.  Our  agency?  if  it  should  be  requi 
site,  cannot  be  properly  refused.  And  I  do  not  bee  why  it  is 
not  as  obligatory  a  rule  of  conduct  for  the  legislature  as  for 
the  courts  of  law 

I  CANNOT  lose  this  opportunity  to  remark,  that  the  coer 
cion,  so  much  dreaded  and  declaimed  against,  appears  at 
length  to  be  no  more  than  the  authority  of  principles,  the 
despotism  of  duty.  Gentlemen  complain  we  are  forced  to 
act  in  this  way ;  we  are  forced  to  swallow  the  treaty.  It  is 
very  true,  unless  we  claim  the  liberty  of  abuse,  the  right  to 
act  as  we  ought  not.  There  is  but  one  right  way  open  for 
us:  the  laws  of  morality  and  good  faith  have  fenced_jip 
9 


66  SPEECH  ON  THE 

every  other.  What  sort  of  liberty  is  that,  which  we  pre 
sume  to  exercise  against  the  authority  of  those  laws  ?  It  is 
for  tyrants  to  complain,  that  principles  are  restraints,  and 
that  they  have  no  liberty,  so  long  as  their  despotism  has  lim 
its.  These  principles  will  be  unfolded  by  examining  the 
remaining  question  : 

SHALL  we  break  the  fREAfr  ? 

THE  treaty  is  bad,  fatally  bad,  is  the  cry.  It  sacrifices  the 
interest,  the  honour,  the  independence  of  the  United  States, 
and  the  faith  of  our  engagements  to  France.  If  we  listen  to 
the  clamour  of  party  intemperance,  the  evils  are  of  a  num 
ber  not  to  be  counted,  and  of  a  nature  not  to  be  borne,  ev&n 
in  idea.  The  language  of  passion  and  exaggeration  may  si 
lence  that  of  sober  reason  in  other  places,  it  has  not  done  it 
here.  The  question  here  is,  whether  the  treaty  be  really  so 
very  fatal,  as  to  oblige  the  nation  to  break  its  faith.  I  admit 
that  such  a  treaty  ought  not  to  be  executed.  I  admit  that  self- 
preservation  is  the  first  law  of  society,  as  well  as  of  individ 
uals.  It  would  perhaps  be  deemed  an  abuse  of  terms  to  call 
that  a  treaty,  which  violates  such  a  principle.  I  wave  also, 
for  the  present,  any  inquiry,  what  departments  shall  repre 
sent  the  nation,  and  annul  the  stipulations  of  a  treaty.  I 
content  myself  with  pursuing  the  inquiry,  whether  the  na 
ture  of  the  compact  be  such  as  to  justify  our  refusal  to  cam- 
it  into  effect.  A  treaty  is  the  promise  of  a  nation.  Now, 
promises  do  not  always  bind  him  that  makes  them. 

BUT  I  lay  down  two  rules,  which  ought  to  guide  us  in  this 
case.  The  treaty  must  appear  to  be  bad  not  merely  in  the 
petty  details,  but  in  its  character,  principle,  and  mass  :  and 
in  the  next  place,  this  ought  to  be  ascertained  by  the  decided 
and  general  concurrence  of  the  enlightened  publick.  I  con 
fess  there  seems  to  me  something  very  like  ridicule  thrown 
over  the  debate  by  the  discussion  of  the  articles  in  detail. 

THE  undecided  point  is,  shall  we  break  our  faith  ?  And 
while  our  country,  and  enlightened  Europe,  await  the  issue 


BRITISH  TREATY.  6? 

with  more  than  curiosity,  we  are  employed  to  gather,  piece 
meal,  and  article  by  article,  from  the  instrument,  a  justification 
for  the  deed  by  trivial  calculations  of  commercial  profit  and 
loss.  This  is  little  worthy  of  the  subject,  of  this  body,  or  of 
the  nation.  If  the  treaty  is  bad,  it  will  appear  to  be  so  in  its 
mass.  Evil  to  a  fatal  extreme,  if  that  be  its  tendency,  requires 
no  proof :  it  brings  it.  Extremes  speak  for  themselves,  and 
make  their  own  law.  What  if  the  direct  voyage  of  American 
ships  to  Jamaica  with  horses  or  lumber  might  net  one  or  two 
per  cent,  more  than  the  present  trade  to  Surinam,  would  the 
proof  of  the  fact  avail  any  thing  in  so  grave  a  question  as  the 
violation  of  the  publick  engagements  ?  "^f 

IT  is  in  vain  to  allege,  that  our  faith  plighted  to  France  is 
violated  by  this  new  treaty.  Our  prior  treaties  are  expressly 
saved  from  the  operation  of  the  British  treaty.  And  what  do 
those  mean,  who  say,  that  our  honour  was  forfeited  by  treating 
at  all,  and  especially  by  such  a  treaty  ?  Justice,  the  laws,  and 
practice  of  nations,  a  just  regard  for  peace  as  a  duty  to  man 
kind,  and  the  known  wish  of  our  citizens,  as  well  as  that  self- 
respect  which  required  it  of  the  nation  to  act  with  dignity  and 
moderation,  all  these  forbad  an  appeal  to  arms  before  we  had 
tried  the  effect  of  negociation.  The  honour  of  the  United 
States  was  saved,  not  forfeited  by  treating.  The  treaty  itself, 
by  its  stipulations  for  the  posts,  for  indemnity,  and  for  a  due 
observation  of  our  neutral  rights,  has  justly  raised  the  charac 
ter  of  the  nation.  Never  did  the  name  of  America  appear  in 
Europe  with  more  lustre,  than  upon  the  event  of  ratifying 
this  instrument.  The  fact  is  of  a  nature  to  overcome  all  con 
tradiction. 

BUT  the  independence  of  the  country — we  are  colonists 
again.  This  is  the  cry  of  the  very  men  who  tell  us,  that 
France  will  resent  our  exercise  of  the  rights  of  an  indepen 
dent  nation  to  adjust  our  wrongs-  with  an  aggressor,  without 
giving  her  the  opportunity  to  say,  those  wrongs  shall  subsist 
and  shall  not  be  adjusted.  This  is  an  admirable  specimen  of 
independence.  The  treaty  with  Great  Britain,  it  cannot  be 
denied,  is  unfavourable  to  this  strange  sort  of  independence. 


68  SPEECH  ON  THE 

FEW  men  of  any  reputation  for  sense  among  those  who  say 
the  treaty  is  bad,  will  put  that  reputation  so  much  at  hazard 
as  to  pretend,  that  it  is  so  extremely  bad  as  to  warrant  and 
require  a  violation  of  the  publick  faith.  The  proper  ground 
of  the  controversy,  therefore,  is  really  unoccupied  by  the  oppo- 
sers  of  the  treaty  ;  as  the  very  hinge  of  the  debate  is  on  the 
point,  not  of  its  being  good  or  otherwise,  but  whether  it  is 
intolerably  and  fatally  pernicious.  If  loose  and  ignorant  de- 
claimers  have  any  where  asserted  the  latter  idea,  it  is  too 
extravagant,  and  too  solidly  refuted,  to  be  repeated  here. 
Instead  of  any  attempt  to  expose  it  still  further,  I  will  say, 
and  I  appeal  with  confidence  to  the  candour  of  many  opposers 
to  the  treaty  to  acknowledge,  that,  if  it  had  been  permitted  to 
go  into  operation  silently,  like  our  other  treaties,  so  little  altera 
tion  of  y.ny  sort  would  be  made  by  it  in  the  great  mass  of  our 
commercial  and  agricultural  concerns,  that  it  would  not  be  j 
generally  discovered  by  its  effects  to  be  in  force,  during  the 
term  for  which  it  was  contracted.  I  place  considerable  reli 
ance  on  the  weight  men  of  candour  will  give  to  this  remark, 
because  I  believe  it  to  be  true,  and  little  short  of  undeniable. 
When  the  panick  dread  of  the  treaty  shall  cease,  as  it  certain 
ly  must,  it  will  be  seen  through  another  medium.  Those 
•who  shall  make  search  into  the  articles  for  the  cause  of  their 
alarms,  will  be  so  far  from  finding  stipulations  that  will  operate 
fatally,  they  will  discover  few  of  them  that  will  have  any  last 
ing  operation  at  all.  Those  which  relate  to  the  disputes 
between  the  two  countries  will  spend  their  force  upon  the  sub 
jects  in  dispute,  and  extinguish  them.  The  commercial  articles 
are  more  of  a  nature  to  confirm  the  existing  state  of  things, 
than  to  change  it.  The  treaty  alarm  was  purely  an  address  to 
the  imagination  and  prejudices  of  the  citizens,  and  not  on  that 
account  the  less  formidable.  Objections  that  proceed  upon 
errour  in  fact  or  calculation,  may  be  traced  and  exposed  ;  but 
such  as  are  drawn  from  the  imagination,  or  addressed  to  it, 
elude  definition,  and  return  to  domineer  over  the  mind,  after 
having  been  banished  from  it  by  truth. 


BRITISH  TREATY.  69 

K  I  WILL  not  so  far  abuse  the  momentary  strength  that  is  lent 
to  me  by  the  zeal  of  the  occasion,  as  to  enlarge  upon  the  com 
mercial  operation  of  the  treaty.  V I  proceed  to  the  second  pro 
position,  which  I  have  stated  as  indispensably  requisite  to  a 
refusal  of  the  performance  of  a  treaty  :  will  the  state  of  pub- 
lick  opinion  justify  the  deed  ? 

No  government,  not  even  a  despotism,  will  break  its  faith, 
without  some  pretext ;  and  it  must  be  plausible,  it  must  be 
such  as  will  carry  the  pnblick  opinion  alon^  with  it.  Reasons 
of  policy,  if  not  of  morality,  dissuade  even  Turkey  and  Algiers 
from  breaches  of  treaty  in  mere  wantonness  of  perfidy,  in  open 
contempt  of  the  reproaches  of  their  subjects.  Surely  a  popu 
lar  government  will  not  proceed  more  arbitrarily,  as  it  is  more 
free  ;  nor  with  less  shame  or  scruple,  in  proportion  as  it  has 
better  morals.  It  will  not  proceed  against  the  faith  of  treaties 
at  all,  unless  the  strong  and  decided  sense  of  the  nation  shall 
pronounce,  not  simply  that  the  treaty  is  not  advantageous,  but 
that  it  ought  to  be  broken  and  annulled. 

SUCH  a  plain  manifestation  of  the  sense  of  the  citizens  is 
indispensably  requisite  ;  first,  because,  if  the  popular  apprehen 
sions  be  not  an  infallible  criterion  of  the  disadvantages  of  the 
instrument,  their  acquiescence  in  the  operation  of  it  is  an  irre 
fragable  proof,  that  the  extreme  case  does  not  exist,  which 
alone  could  justify  our  setting  it  aside. 

IN  the  next  place,  this  approving  opinion  of  the  citizens  is 
requisite,  as  the  best  preventive  of  the  ill  consequences  of  a 
measure  always  so  delicate,  and  often  so  hazardous.  Individu 
als  would,  in  that  case  at  least,  attempt  to  repel  the  opprobri 
um  that  would  be  thrown  upon  congress  by  those  who  will 
charge  it  with  perfidy.  They  would  give  weight  to  the  testi 
mony  of  facts,  and  the  authority  of  principles,  on  which  the 
government  would  rest  its  vindication  :  and  if  war  should  ensue 
upon  the  violation,  our  citizens  would  not  be  divided  from  their 
government,  nor  the  ardour  of  their  courage  be  chilled  by  the 
consciousness  of  injustice,  and  the  sense  of  humiliation,  that 
sense  which  makes  those  despicable  who  know  they  are  des 
pised. 


70  SPEECH  ON  THE 

I  ADD  a  third  reason,  and  whh  me  it  has  a  force  that  no  words 
of  mine  can  augment,  that  a  government  wantonly  refusing  to 
fulfil  its  engagement  is  the  corrupter  of  its  citizens.  Will  the 
laws  continue  to  prevail  in  the  hearts  of  the  people >  when  the 
respect  that  gives  them  efficacy  is  withdrawn  from  the  legisla 
tors  ?  How  shall  we  punish  vice,  while  we  practise  it  ?  We 
have  not  force,  and  vain  will  be  our  reliance,  when  we  have 
forfeited  the  resources  of  opinion.  To  weaken  government, 
and  to  corrupt  morals,  are  effects  of  a  'breach  of  faith  not  to  be 
prevented  ;  and  from  effects  they  become  causes,  produced 
with  augmented  activity,  more  disorder  and  more  corruption : 
order  will  be  disturbed,  and  the  life  of  the  publick  liberty 
shortened. 

AND  who,  I  would  inquire,  is  hardy  enough  to  pretend,  that 
the  publick  voice  demands  the  violation  of  the  treaty  ?  The 
evidence  of  the  sense  of  the  great  mass  of  the  nation  is  often 
equivocal ;  but  when  was  it  ever  manifested  with  more  energy 
and  precision  than  at  the  present  moment  ?  The  voice  of  the 
people  is  raised  against  the  measure  of  refusing  the  appropria 
tions.  If  gentlemen  should  urge,  nevertheless,  that  all  this 
sound  of  alarm  is  a  counterfeit  expression  of  the  sense  of  the 
publick,  I  will  proceed  to  other  proofs.  Is  the  treaty  ruinous 
to  our  commerce  ?  What  has  blinded  the  eyes  of  the  merchants 
and  traders  ?  Surely  they  are  not  enemies  to  trade,  nor  ignorant 
of  their  own  interests.  Their  sense  is  not  so  liable  to  be 
mistaken  as  that  of  a  nation,  and  they  are  almost  unanimous , 
The  articles  stipulating  the  redress  of  our  injuries  by  captures 
on  the  sea,  are  said  to  be  delusive.  By  whom  is  this  said  ? 
The  very  men  whose  fortunes  are  staked  upon  the  competency 
of  that  redress,  say  no  such  thing.  They  wait  with  anxious 
fear,  lest  you  should  annul  that  compact,  on  which  all  their 
hopes  are  rested. 

THUS  we  offer  proof,  little  short  of  absolute  demonstration . 
that  the  voice  of  our  country  is  raised  not  to  sanction,  but  to 
deprecate,  the  non-performance  of  our  engagements.  It  is 
not  the  nation,  it  is  one,  and  but  one,  branch  of  the  govern- 


BRITISH  TREATY.  71 

nient  that  proposes  to  reject  them.  With  this  aspect  of  things, 
to  reject  is  an  act  of  desperation. 

I  SHALL  be  asked,  why  a  treaty  so  good  in  some  articles, 
and  so  harmless  in  others,  has  met  with  such  unrelenting 
opposition  ?  and  how  the  clamours  against  it  from  New-Hamp 
shire  to  Georgia  can  be  accounted  for  ?  The  apprehensions  so 
extensively  diffused,  on  its  first  publication,  will  be  vouched 
as  proof,  that  the  treaty  is  bad,  and  that  the  people  hold  it  in 
abhorrence. 

I  AM  not  embarrassed  to  find  the  answer  to  this  insinuation. 
Certainly  a  foresight  of  its  pernicious  operation  could  not  have 
created  all  the  fears  that  were  felt  or  affected:  the  alarm 
spread  faster  than  the  publication  of  the  treaty  :  there  were 
more  criticks  than  readers.  Besides,  as  the  subject  was  exa 
mined,  those  fears  have  subsided.  The  movements  of  passion 
are  quicker  than  those  of  the  understanding  :  we  are  to 
search  for  the  causes  of  first  impressions,  not  in  the  articles  of 
this  obnoxious  and  misrepresented  instrument,  but  in  the  state 
of  the  publick  feeling. 

THE  fervour  of  the  revolution  war  had  not  entirely  cooled, 
nor  its  controversies  ceased,  before  the  sensibility  of  our  citi 
zens  was  quickened  with  a  tenfold  vivacity  by  a  new  and 
extraordinary  subject  of  irritation.  One  of  the  two  great 
nations  of  Europe  underwent  a  change,  which  has  attracted 
all  our  wonder,  and  interested  all  our  sympathy.  Whatever 
they  did,  the  zeal  of  many  went  with  them,  and  often  went  to 
excess.  These  impressions  met  with  much  to  inflame,  and 
nothing  to  restrain  them.  In  our  newspapers,  in  our  feasts, 
and  some  of  our  elections,  enthusiasm  was  admitted  a  merit, 
a  test  of  patriotism;  and  that  made  it  contagious.  In  the 
opinion  of  party,  we  could  not  love  or  hate  enough.  I  dare 
say,  in  spite  of  all  the  obloquy  it  may  provoke,  we  were  ex 
travagant  in  both.  It  is  my  right  to  avow,  that  passions  so 
impetuous,  enthusiasm  so  wild,  could  not  subsist  without  dis 
turbing  the  sober  exercise  of  reason,  without  putting  at  risk 
the  peace  and  precious  interests  of  our  country.  They  were 
hazarded.  I  will  not  exhaust  the  little  breath  I  have  left,  to 


72  SPEECH  OX  THE 

say  how  much,  nor  by  whom,  or  by  what  means  they  were 
rescued  from  the  sacrifice.  Shall  I  be  called  upon  to  ofi^r  my 
proofs  ?  They  are  here,  they  are  every  where.  No  one  has 
forgotten  the  proceedings  of  1794.  No  one  has  forgotten  the 
captures  of  cur  vessels,  and  the  imminent  danger  of  war.  The 
nation  thirsted  not  merely  for  reparation  but  vengeance.  Suf 
fering  such  wrongs  and  agitated  by  such  resentments,  was  it 
in  the  power  of  any  words  of  compact,  or  couid  any  parchment 
with  its  seals  prevail  at  once  to  tranquillize  the  people  ?  It  was 
impossible.  Treaties  in  England  are  seldom  popular,  and 
least  of  all,  when  the  stipulations  of  amity  succeed  to  the 
bitterness  of  hatred.  Even  the  best  treaty,  though  nothing 
be  refused,  will  choak  resentment,  but  not  satisfy  it.  Every 
treaty  is  as  sure  to  disappoint  extravagant  expectations,  as  to 
disarm  extravagant  passions.  Of  the  latter,  hatred  is  one  that 
takes  no  bribes :  they  who  are  animated  by  the  spirit  of  revenge, 
will  not  be  quieted  by  the  possibility  of  profit. 

WHY  do  they  complain,  that  the  West-Indies  are  not  laid 
open  ?  Why  do  they  lament,  that  any  restriction  is  stipulated 
on  the  commerce  of  the  East-Indies  ?  Why  do  they  pretend, 
that  if  they  reject  this,  and  insist  upon  more,  more  will  be 
accomplished  ?  Let  us  be  explicit — more  would  not  satisfy.  If 
all  was  granted,  would  not  a  treaty  of  amity  with  Britain  still 
be  obnoxious  ?  Have  we  not  this  instant  heard  it  urged  against 
our  envoy,  that  he  was  not  ardent  enough  in  his  hatred  of 
Great  Britain  ?  A  treaty  of  amity  is  condemned  because  it  was 
not  made  by  a  foe,  and  in  the  spirit  of  one.  The  same  gentle 
man,  at  the  same  instant,  repeats  a  very  prevailing  objection, 
that  no  treaty  should  be  made  with  the  enemy  of  France.  No 
treaty,  exclaim  others,  should  be  made  with  a  monarch  or  a 
despot :  there  will  be  no  naval  security  while  those  sea  robbers 
domineer  on  the  ocean:  their  den  must  be  destroyed:  that 
nation  must  be  extirpated. 

I  LIKE  this,  sir,  because  it  is  sincerity.  With  feelings  such 
as  these,  we  do  not  pant  for  treaties :  such  passions  seek 
nothing,  and  will  be  content  with  nothing,  but  the  destruction 
of  their  object.  If  a  treaty  left  king  George  his  island,  it 


BRITISH  TREATY.  73 

would  not  answer,  not  if  he  stipulated  to  pay  rent  for  it.  It 
has  been  said,  the  world  ought  to  rejoice,  if  Britain  was  sunk 
in  the  sea ;  if,  where  there  are  now  men,  and  wealth,  and  laws, 
and  liberty,  there  was  no  more  than  a  sand  bank  for  the  sea 
monsters  to  fatten  on,  a  space  for  the  storms  of  the  ocean  to 
mingle  in  conflict.  \f 

I  OBJECT  nothing  to  the  good  sense  or  humanity  of  all  this. 
I  yield  the  point,  that  this  is  a  proof  that  the  age  of  reason  is 
in  progress.  Let  it  be  philanthropy,  let  it  be  patriotism,  if 
you  will ;  but  it  is  no  indication,  that  any  treaty  would  be  ap* 
proved.  The  difficulty  is  not  to  overcome  the  objections  to 
the  terms ;  it  is  to  restrain  the  repugnance  to  any  stipulations 
of  amity  with  the  party. 

HAVING  alluded  to  the  rival  of  Great  Britain,  I  am  not  un 
willing  to  explain  myself:  I  affect  no  concealment,  and  I  have 
practised  none.  While  those  two  great  nations  agitate  all 
Europe  with  their  quarrels,  they  will  both  equally  endeavour 
to  create  an  influence  in  America :  each  will  exert  all  its  arts 
to  range  our  strength  on  its  own  side.  How  is  this  to  be 
effected  ?  Our  government  is  a  democratical  republick :  it  will 
not  be  disposed  to  pursue  a  system  of  politicks,  in  subservience 
to  either  France  or  England,  in  opposition  to  the  general 
wishes  of  the  citizens  :  and,  if  congress  should  adopt  such 
measures,  they  would  not  be  pursued  long,  nor  with  much 
success.  From  the  nature  of  our  government,  popularity  i$ 
the  instrument  of  foreign  influence.  Without  it,  all  is  labour 
and  disappointment :  with  that  mighty  auxiliary,  foreign  in* 
trigue  finds  agents,  not  only  volunteers,  but  competitors  for 
employment,  and  any  thing  like  reluctance  is  understood  to  be  a 
crime.  Has  Britain  this  means  of  influence  ?  Certainly  not. 
If  her  gold  could  buy  adherents,  their  becoming  such  would 
deprive  them  of  all  political  power  and  importance.  They 
would  not  wield  popularity  as  a  weapon,  but  would  fall  under 
it.  Britain  has  no  influence,  and,  for  the  reasons  just  given, 
can  have  none.  She  has  enough ;  and  God  forbid  she  ever 
should  have  more.  France,  possessed  of  popular  enthusiasm, 
of  party  attachments,  has  had,  and  still  has,  too  much  influence 
JO 


74  SPEECH  ON  THE 

on  our  politicks :  any  foreign  influence  is  too  much  and  ought 
to  be  destroyed.  I  detest  the  man,  and  disdain  the  spirits,  that 
can  bend  to  a  mean  subserviency  to  the  view  of  any  nation.  It 
is  enough  to  be  Americans  :  that  character  comprehends  our 
duties,  and  ought  to  engross  our  attachments. 

BUT  I  would  not  be  misunderstood.  I  would  not  break  the 
alliance  with  France  :  I  would  not  have  the  connection  between 
the  two  countries  even  a  cold  one.  It  should  be  cordial  and 
sincere  ;  but  I  would  banish  that  influence,  which,  by  acting 
on  the  passions  of  the  citizens,  may  acquire  a  power  over  the 
government. 

IT  is  no  bad  proof  of  the  merit  of  the  treaty,  that,  under  all 
these  unfavourable  circumstances,  it  should  be  so  well  approv 
ed.  In  spite  of  first  impressions,  in  spite  of  misrepresentation 
und  party  clamour,  inquiry  has  multiplied  its  advocates ;  and 
at  last  the  publick  sentiment  appears  to  me  clearly  preponde 
rating  to  its  side. 

ON  the  most  careful  review  of  the  several  branches  of  the 
treaty,  those  which  respect  political  arrangements,  the  spolia 
tions  on  our  trade,  and  the  regulation  of  commerce,  there  is 
little  to  be  apprehended ;  the  evil,  aggravated  as  it  is  by  party, 
is  little  in  degree,  and  short  in  duration — two  years  from  the 
end  of  the  European  war.  I  ask,  and  I  would  ask  the  question 
significantly,  what  are  the  inducements  to  reject  the  treaty  ? 
What  great  object  is  to  be  gained,  and  fairly  gained  by  it  ?  If, 
however,  as  to  the  merits  of  the  treaty,  candour  should  suspend 
its  approbation,  what  is  there  to  hold  patriotism  a  moment  in 
balance  as  to  the  violation  of  it  ?  Nothing.  I  repeat  confidently, 
nothing.  There  is  nothing  before  us  in  that  event,  but  con 
fusion  and  dishonour. 

BUT  before  I  attempt  to  develope  those  consequences,  I 
must  put  myself  at  ease  by  some  explanation.  Nothing  is 
worse  received  among  men,  than  the  confutation  of  their 
opinions ;  and,  of  these,  none  are  more  dear  or  more  vulnera 
ble  than  their  political  opinions.  To  say,  that  a  proposition 
leads  to  shame  and  ruin,  is  almost  equivalent  to  a  charge,  that 
the  'Supporters  of  it  intend  to  produce  them.  I  throw  myself 


BRITISH  TREATY.  75 

upon  the  magnanimity  and  candour  of  those  who  hear  me.  I 
cannot  do  justice  to  my  subject  without  exposing,  as  forcibly 
as  I  can,  all  the  evils  in  prospect.  I  readily  admit,  that  in 
every  science,  and  most  of  all  in  politicks,  errour  springs  from 
other  sources  than  the  want  of  sense  or  integrity.  I  despise 
indiscriminate  professions  of  candour  and  respect.  There  are 
individuals  opposed  to  me,  of  whom  I  am  not  bound  to  say  any 
thing ;  but  of  many,  perhaps  of  a  majority  of  the  opposers  of 
the  appropriations,  it  gives  me  pleasure  to  declare,  they  pos 
sess  my  confidence  and  regard.  There  are  among  them  in 
dividuals,  for  whom  I  entertain  a  cordial  affection. 

THE  consequences  of  refusing  to  make  provision  for  the 
treaty  are  not  all  to  be  foreseen.  By  rejecting,  vast  interests 
are  committed  to  the  sport  of  the  winds  :  chance  becomes  the 
arbiter  of  events,  and  it  is  forbidden  to  human  foresight  to 
count  their  number,  or  measure  their  extent.  Before  we 
resolve  to  leap  into  this  abyss,  so  dark  and  so  profound,  it 
becomes  us  to  pause,  and  reflect  upon  such  of  the  dangers  as 
arc  obvious  and  inevitable.  If  this  assembly  should  be  wrought 
into  a  temper  to  defy  these  consequences,  it  is  vain,  it  is  decep 
tive  to  pretend,  that  we  can  escape  them.  It  is  worse  than 
weakness  to  say,  that,  as  to  publick  faith,  our  vote  has  already 
settled  the  question.  Another  tribunal  than  our  own  is  already 
erected :  the  publick  opinion,  not  merely  of  our  own  country, 
but  of  the  enlightened  world,  will  pronounce  a  judgment  that 
we  cannot  resist,  that  we  dare  not  even  affect  to  despise. 

WELL  may  I  urge  it  to  men,  who  know  the  worth  of  charac 
ter,  that  it  is  no  trivial  calamity  to  have  it  contested.  Refusing 
to  do  what  the  treaty  stipulates  shall  be  done,  opens  the  con 
troversy.  Even  if  we  should  stand  justified  at  last,  a  character 
that  is  vindicated  is  something  worse  than  it  stood  before, 
unquestioned  and  unquestionable.  Like  the  plaintiff  in  an 
action  of  slander,  we  recover  a  reputation  disfigured  by  invec 
tive,  and  even  tarnished  by  too  much  handling.  In  the  com 
bat  for  the  honour  of  the  nation,  it  may  receive  some  wounds, 
which,  though  they  should  heal,  will  leave  scars.  I  need  not  say, 
tor  surely  the  feelings  of  every  bosom  have  anticipated,  that  \re 


76  SPEECH  ON  THE 

cannot  guard  this  sense  of  national  honour,  this  ever  living  fire, 
which  alone  keeps  patriotism  warm  in  the  heart,  with  a  sensi 
bility  too  vigilant  and  jealous.  If,  by  executing  the  treaty,  there 
is  no  possibility  of  dishonour,  and  if,  by  rejecting,  there  is  some 
foundation  for  doubt  and  for  reproach,  it  is  not  for  me  to  mea 
sure  ;  it  is  for  your  own  feelings  to  estimate,  the  vast  distance 
that  divides  the  one  side  of  the  alternative  from  the  other. 

IF  therefore  WTC  should  enter  on  the  examination  of  the 
question  of  duty  and  obligation  with  some  feelings  of  prepos 
session,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  they  are  such  as  we  ought  to 
have  :  it  is  an  after  inquiry  to  determine,  whether  they  are  such 
as  ought  finally  to  be  resisted. 

THE  resolution  (Mr.  Blount's)  is  less  explicit  than  the  con 
stitution.  Its  patrons  should  have  made  it  more  so,  if  possible, 
if  they  had  any  doubts,  or  meant  the  publick  should  entertain 
none.  Is  it  the  sense  of  that  vote,  as  some  have  insinuated, 
that  we  claim  a  right,  for  any  cause  or  no  cause  at  all,  but  our 
own  sovereign  will  and  pleasure,  to  refuse  to  execute,  and 
thereby  to  annul  the  stipulations  of  a  treaty  ?  that  we  have 
nothing  to  regard  but  the  expediency  or  inexpediency  of  the 
measure,  being  absolutely  free  from  all  obligation  by  compact 
to  give  it  our  sanction  ?  A  doctrine  so  monstrous,  so  shame 
less,  is  refuted  by  being  avowed.  There  are  no  words  you 
could  express  it  in,  that  would  not  convey  both  confutation  and 
Reproach.  It  would  outrage  the  ignorance  of  the  tenth  centuiy 
to  believe ;  it  would  baffle  the  casuistry  of  a  papal  council  to 
vindicate.  I  venture  to  say  it  is  impossible.  No  less  impossi 
ble  that  we  should  desire  to  assert  the  scandalous  privilege  of 
being  free,  after  we  have  pledged  our  honour. 

IT  is  doing  injustice  to  the  resolution  of  the  house,  (which  I 
dislike  on  many  accounts)  to  strain  the  interpretation  of  it  to 
this  extravagance.  The  treaty-making  power  is  declared  by 
it  to  be  vested  exclusively  in  the  president  and  senate.  Will 
any  man  in  his  senses  affirm,  that  it  can  be  a  treaty  before  it 
it  has  any  binding  force  or  obligation  ?  If  it  has  no  binding 
force  upon  us,  it  has  none  upon  Great  Britain.  Let  candour 
answer,  is  Great  Britain  free  from  any  obligation  to  deliver 


BRITISH  TREATY.  77 

the  posts  in  June,  and  are  we  willing  to  signify  to  her,  that 
we  think  so  ?  Is  it  with  that  nation  a  question  of  mere  expedi 
ency  or  inexpediency  to  do  it ;  and  that  too,  even  after  we  have 
done  all  that  depends  upon  us  to  give  the  treaty  effect  ?  No 
sober  man  believes  this.  No  one  who  would  not  join  in  con 
demning  the  faithless  proceeding  of  that  nation,  if  such  a  doc 
trine  should  be  avowed,  and  carried  into  practice  :  and  why- 
complain,  if  Great  Britain  is  not  bound  ?  There  can  be  no 
breach  of  faith,  where  none  is  plighted.  I  shall  be  told,  that 
she  is  bound.  Surely  it  follows,  that,  if  she  is  bound  to  per 
formance,  our  nation  is  under  a  similar  obligation  :  if  both  parties 
be  not  obliged,  neither  is  obliged ;  it  is  no  compact,  no  treaty. 
This  is  a  dictate  of  law  and  common  sense,  and  every  jury  in 
the  country  has  sanctioned  it  on  oath.  It  cannot  be  a  treaty 
and  yet  no  treaty,  a  bargain  and  yet  no  promise.  If  it  is  a  pro 
mise,  I  am  not  to  read  a  lecture  to  shew,  why  an  honest  man 
will  keep  his  promise. 

THE  reason  of  the  thing,  and  the  words  of  the  resolution  of 
the  house,  imply,  that  the  United  States  engage  their  good 
faith  in  a  treaty.  We  disclaim,  say  the  majority,  the  treaty- 
making  power,  we  of  course  disclaim  (they  ought  to  say) 
eveiy  doctrine,  that  would  put  a  negative  upon  the  doings  of 
that  power.  It  is  the  prerogative  of  folly  alone  to  maintain 
both  sides  of  the  proposition.  '<»„ 

WILL  any  man  affirm,  the  American  nation  is  engaged  by 
good  faith  to  the  British  nation ;  but  that  engagement  is  no 
thing  to  this  house  ?  Such  a  man  is  not  to  be  reasoned  with. 
Such  a  doctrine  is  a  coat  of  mail,  that  would  turn  the  edge  of 
all  the  weapons  of  argument,  if  they  were  sharper  than  a 
sword.  Will  it  be  imagined  the  king  of  Great  Britain  and  the 
president  are  mutually  bound  by  the  treaty ;  but  the  two  nations 
are  free  ? 

IT  is  one  thing  for  this  house  to  stand  in  a  position,  that  pre 
sents  an  opportunity  to  break  the  faith  of  America,  and  another 
to  establish  a  principle  that  will  justify  the  deed. 

WE  feel  less  repugnance  to  believe,  that  any  other  body  is 
bound  by  obligation  than  our  own.  There  is  not  a  man  here, 


£8  SPEECH  ON  THE 

who  does  not  say  that  G  eat  Britain  is  bound  by  treaty.  Bring; 
it  nearer  home.  Is  the  senate  bound  ?  Just  as  much  as  the 
house  and  no  more.  Suppose  the  senate,  as  part  of  the  treaty 
power,  by  ratifying  a  treaty  on  Monday,  pledges  the  publick 
faith  to  do  a  certain  act.  Then,  in  their  ordinary  capacity  as  a 
branch  of  the  legislature,  the  senate  is  called  upon  on  Tuesday 
to  perform  that  act,  for  example,  an  appropriation  of  money, 
is  the  senate  (so  lately  under  obligation)  now  free  to  agree  or 
disagree  to  the  act  ?  If  the  twenty  ratifying  senators  should  rise 
up  and  avow  this  principle,  saying,  we  struggle  for  liberty, 
we  will  not  be  cyphers,  mere  puppets,  and  give  their  votes 
accordingly,  would  not  shame  blister  their  tongues,  would  not 
infamy  tingle  in  their  ears,  would  not  their  country,  which 
they  had  insulted  and  dishonoured,  though  it  should  be  silent 
and  forgiving,  be  a  revolutionary  tribunal,  a  rack,  on  which 
their  own  reflections  would  stretch  them  ? 

THIS,  sir,  is  a  cause,  that  would  be  dishonuured  and  betray 
ed,  if  I  contented  myself  with  appealing  only  to  the  understand 
ing.  It  is  too  cold,  and  its  processes  are  too  slow  for  the 
occasion.  I  desire  to  thank  God,  that,  since  he  has  given  me 
an  intellect  so  fallible,  he  has  impressed  upon  me  an  instinct 
that  is  sure.  On  a  question  of  shame  and  honour,  reasoning  is 
sometimes  useless,  and  worse.  I  feel  the  decision  in  my 
pulse :  if  it  throws  no  light  upon  the  brain,  it  kindles  a  fire  at 
the  heart. 

IT  is  not  easy  to  deny,  it  is  impossible  to  doubt,  that  a  treaty 
imposes  an  obligation  on  the  American  nation.  It  would  be 
childish  to  consider  the  president  and  senate  obliged,  and  the 
nation  and  house  free.  What  is  the  obligation  ?  perfect  or 
imperfect  ?  If  perfect,  the  debate  is  brought  to  a  conclusion. 
If  imperfect,  how  large  a  part  of  our  faith  is  pawned  ?  Is  half 
our  honour  put  at  risk,  and  is  that  half  too  cheap  to  be  redeem 
ed  ?  How  long  has  this  hair-splitting  subdivision  of  good  faith 
been  discovered,  and  why  has  it  escaped  the  researches  of  the 
writers  on  the  law  of  nations  ?  Shall  we  add  a  new  chapter  to 
that  law ;  or  insert  this  doctrine  as  a  supplement  to,  or  more 
properly  a  repeal  of  the  ten  commandments  ? 


BRITISH  TREATY.  79 

THE  principles  and  the  example  of  the  British  parliament 
have  been  alleged  to  coincide  with  the  doctrine  of  those,  who 
deny  the  obligation  of  the  treaty.  I  have  not  had  the  health  to 
make  very  laborious  researches  into  this  subject ;  I  will,  how 
ever,  sketch  my  view  of  it.  Several  instances  have  been 
noticed  ;  but  the  treaty  of  Utrecht  is  the  only  one  that  seems  to 
be  at  all  applicable.  It  has  been  answered,  that  the  conduct  of 
parliament  in  that  celebrated  example  affords  no  sanction  to 
our  refusal  to  carry  the  treaty  into  effect.  The  obligation  of  the 
treaty  of  Utrecht  has  been  understood  to  depend  on  the  con 
currence  of  parliament,  as  a  condition  to  its  becoming  of  force. 
If  that  opinion  should,  however,  appear  incorrect,  still  the  prece 
dent  proves,  not  that  the  treaty  of  Utrecht  wanted  obligation, 
but  that  parliament  disregarded  it :  a  proof,  not  of  the  construc 
tion  of  the  treaty -making  power,  but  of  the  violation  of  a  nation 
al  engagement.  Admitting  still  further,  that  the  parliament 
claimed  and  exercised  its  power,  not  as  a  breach  of  faith,  but 
as  a  matter  of  constitutional  right,  I  reply  that  the  analogy 
between  parliament  and  congress  totally  fails.  The  nature  of 
the  British  government  may  require  and  justify  a  course  of 
proceeding  in  respect  to  treaties,  that  is  unwarrantable  here. 

THE  British  government  is  a  mixed  one.  The  king  at  the 
head  of  the  army,  of  the  hierarchy,  with  an  ample  civil  list, 
hereditary,  unresponsible,  and  possessing  the  prerogative  of 
peace  and  war,  may  be  properly  observed  with  some  jealousy, 
in  respect  to  the  exercise  of  the  treaty-making  power.  It  seems, 
and  perhaps  from  a  spirit  of  caution  on  this  account,  to  he 
their  doctrine,  that  treaties  bind  the  nation,  but  are  not  to  be 
regarded  by  the  courts  of  law,  until  laws  have  been  passed 
conformably  to  them.  Our  constitution  has  expressly  regulat 
ed  the  matter  differently.  The  concurrence  of  parliament  is 
necessary  to  treaties  becoming  laws  in  England,  gentlemen 
say ;  and  here  the  senate,  representing  the  states,  must  concur 
in  treaties.  The  constitution,  and  the  reason  of  the  case  make 
the  concurrence  of  the  senate  as  effectual  as  the  sanction  of 
parliament ;  and  why  not  ?  The  senate  is  an  elective  body,  and 
the  approbation  of  a  majority  of  the  states  affords  the  nation 


SO  SPEECH  ON  THE 

as  ample  security  against  the  abuse  of  the  treaty -making  power, 
as  the  British  nation  can  enjoy  in  the  controul  of  parliament. 

WHATEVER  doubt  there  may  be  as  to  the  parliamentary 
doctrine  of  the  obligation  of  treaties  in  Great  Britain,  (and 
perhaps  there  is  some)  there  is  none  in  their  books,  or  their 
modern  practice.  Blackstone  represents  treaties  as  of  the 
highest  obligation,  when  ratified  by  the  king :  and  for  almost 
a  centuiy,  there  has  been  no  instance  of  opposition  by  parlia 
ment  to  this  doctrine.  Their  treaties  have  been  uniformly 
carried  into  effect,  although  many  have  been  ratified  of  a 
nature  most  obnoxious  to  party,  and  have  produced  a  louder 
clamour  than  we  have  lately  witnessed.  The  example  of  Eng 
land,  therefore,  fairly  examined,  does  not  warrant,  it  dissuades 
us  from  a  negative  vote. 

GENTLEMEN  have  said,  with  spirit,  whatever  the  true  doctrine 
of  our  constitution  may  be,  Great  Britain  has  no  right  to  com 
plain  or  to  dictate  an  interpretation  :  the  sense  of  the  American 
nation,  as  to  the  treaty  power,  is  to  be  received  by  all  foreign 
nations.   This  is  very  true  as  a  maxim ;  but  the  fact  is  against 
those  who  vouch  it :  the  sense  of  the  American  nation  is  NOT 
as  the  vote  of  the  house  has  declared  it.     Our  claim  to  some 
agency  in  giving  force  and  obligation  to  treaties,  is  beyond  all 
kind  of  controversy  NOVEL.  The  sense  of  the  nation  is  probably 
against  it :  the  sense  of  the  government  certainly  is.  The  pre 
sident  denies  it  on  constitutional  grounds,  and  therefore  cannot 
ever  accede  to  our  interpretation.      The  senate  ratified  the. 
treaty,  and   cannot   without    dishonour   adopt   it,    as   I   have 
attempted  to  shew.     Where  then  do  they  find  the  proof,  that 
this  is  the  American  sense  of  the  treaty-making  power,  which 
is  to  silence  the  murmurs  of  Great  Britain  ?    Is  it  because  a 
majority  of  two  or  three,  or,  at  the  most,  four  or  five  of  this 
house  will  reject  the  treaty  ?  Is  it  thus  the  sense  of  our  nation 
is  to  be  recognised  ?     Our  government  may  thus  be  stopped 
in  its  movements  :  a  struggle  for  power  may  thus  commence, 
and  the  event  of  the  conflict  may  decide,  who  is  the  victor,  and 
the  quiet  possessor  of  the  treaty  power.     But,  at  present,  it  is 
beyond  all  credibility,  that  our  vote  by  a  bare  majority,  should 


BRITISH  TREATY.  81 

be  believed  to  do  any  thing  better  than  to  embitter  our  divisions, 
and  to  tear  up  the  settled  foundations  of  our  departments. 

IF  the  obligation  of  a  treaty  be  complete,   I  am  aware  that 
cases  sometimes  exist,  which  will  justify  a  nation  in  refusing 
a  compliance.   Are  our  liberties,  gentlemen  demand,  to  be  bar~ 
iered  away  by  a  treaty,  and  is   there  no  remedy  ?     There  is. 
Extremes  are  not  to  be  supposed ;  but,  when  they  happen, 
they  make  the  law  for  themselves.     No  such  extreme  cun  be 
pretended  in  this  instance  ;  and,  if  it  existed,  the  authority  it 
would  confer  to  throw  off  the  obligation  would  rest  where  the 
obligation  itself  resides,  in  the  nation.     This  house  is  not  the 
nation  ;  it  is  not  the  whole  delegated  authority  of  the  nation. 
Beiii£  only  a  part  of  that  authority-,  its  right  to  act  for  the  whole 
society  obviously  depends  on  the  concurrence  of  the  other  two 
branches.     If  they  reluse  to  concur,  a  treaty  once  made  re 
mains  of  full  force,  although  a  breach  on  the  part  of  the  for 
eign  nation  would  confer  upon  our  own  a  right  to  forbear  the 
execution.     I  repeat  it,  even  in  that  case,  the  act  of  this  house 
cannot  be  admitted  as  the  act  of  the  nation  ;  and  if  the  president 
and  senate  should  not  concur,  the  treaty  would  be  obligatory. 
I  PUT  a  case  that  will  not  fail  to  produce  conviction.     Our 
treaty  with  France  engages,  that  free  bottoms  shall  make  free 
goods  ;  and  how  has  it  been  kept  ?  As  such  engagements  will 
ever  be  in  time  of  war.     France  has  set  it  aside,  and  pleads 
imperious  necessity.     We  have  no  navy  to  enforce  the  obser 
vance  of  such  articles,  and  paper  barriers  are  weak  against  the 
violence  of  those,  who  are  on  the  scramble  for  enemy's  goods 
on  the  high  seas.     The  breach  of  any  article  of  the  treaty  by 
one  nation  gives  an  undoubted  right  to  the  other  to  renounce 
the  whole  treaty.     But  has  one  branch  of  the  government  that 
right,  or  must  it  reside  with  the  whole  authority  of  the  nation  ? 
What  if  the  senate  should  resolve,  that  the  French  treaty  is 
broken,  and  therefore  null  and  of  no  effect  ?   The  answer  is 
obvious  ;  you  would  deny  their  sole  authority.    That  branch  of 
the  legislature  has  equal  power,  in  this  regard,  with  the  house 
of  representatives  :  one  branch  alone  cannot  express  the  will 

of  the  nation. 

11 


82  SPEECH  ON  THE 

A  RIGHT  to  annul  a  treaty,  because  a  foreign  nation  has 
broken  its  articles,  is  only  like  the  case  of  a  sufficient  cause  to 
repeal  a  law.  In  both  cases,  the  branches  of  our  government 
must  concur  in  the  orderly  way,  or  the  law  and  the  treaty  will 
remain. 

THE  very  cases  supposed  by  my  adversaries  in  this  argu 
ment,  conclude  against  themselves.  They  will  persist  in  con 
founding  ideas,  that  should  be  kept  distinct ;  they  will  suppose, 
that  the  house  of  representatives  has  no  power  unless  it  has  all 
power  :  the  house  is  nothing,  if  it  be  not  the  whole  government, 
the  nation. 

ON  every  hypothesis,  therefore,  the  conclusion  is  not  to  be 
resisted  :  we  are  either  to  execute  this  treaty,  or  break  our  faith. 

To  expatiate  on  the  value  of  publick  faith  may  pass  with  some 
men  for  declamation  :  to  such  men  I  have  nothing  to  say.  To 
others  I  will  urge,  can  any  circumstance  mark  upon  a  people 
more  turpitude  and  debasement  ?  Can  any  thing  tend  more  to 
make  men  think  themselves  mean,  or  degrade  to  a  lower  point 
their  estimation  of  virtue  and  their  standard  of  action  ?  It  would 
not  merely  demoralize  mankind ;  it  tends  to  break  all  the  liga 
ments  of  society,  to  dissolve  that  mysterious  charm  which 
attracts  individuals  to  the  nation,  and  to  inspire  in  its  stead  a 
repulsive  sense  of  shame  and  disgust. 

WHAT  is  patriotism  ?  Is  it  a  narrow  affection  for  the  spot 
where  a  man  was  born  ?  Are  the  very  clods  where  we  tread 
entitled  to  this  ardent  preference,  because  they  are  greener  ? 
No,  sir,  this  is  not  the  character  of  the  virtue,  and  it  soars 
higher  for  its  object.  It  is  an  extended  self-love,  mingling 
with  all  the  enjoyments  of  life, -and  twisting  itself  with  the 
minutest  filaments  of  the  heart.  It  is  thus  we  obey  the  laws 
of  society,  because  they  are  the  laws  of  virtue.  In  their  author 
ity  we  see,  not  the  array  of  force  and  terrour,  but  the  venera 
ble  image  of  our  country's  honour.  Every  good  citizen  makes 
that  honour  his  own,  und  cherishes  it  not  only  as  precious,  but 
as  sacred.  He  is  willing  to  risk  his  life  in  its  defence  ;  and  is 
"  conscious  that  he  gains  protection,  while  he  t;ives  it.  For  what 
rights  of  a  citizen  will  be  deemed  inviolable,  when  a  state 


BRITISH  TREATY.  83 

renounces  the  principles  that  constitute  their  security  ?  Or,  if 
his  life  should  not  be  invaded,  what  would  its  enjoyments  be  in 
a  country  odious  in  the  eyes  of  strangers,  and  dishonoured  in 
his  own  ?  Could  he  look  with  affection  and  veneration  to  such 
a  country  as  his  parent  ?  The  sense  of  having  one  would  die 
within  him  ;  he  would  blush  for  his  patriotism,  if  he  retained 
any,  and  justly,  for  it  would  be  a  vice  :  he  would  be  a  ban 
ished  man  in  his  native  land. 

I  SEE  no  exception  to  the  respect  that  is  paid  among  na 
tions  to  the  law  of  good  faith.  If  there  are  cases  in  this  enlight 
ened  period  when  it  is  violated,  there  are  none  when  it  is  decri 
ed.  It  is  the  philosophy  of  politicks,  the  religion  of  govern 
ments.  It  is  observed  by  barbarians  :  a  whiff  of  tobacco  smoke, 
or  a  string  of  beads,  gives  not  merely  binding  force,  but  sanc 
tity  to  treaties.  Even  in  Algiers,  a  truce  may  be  bought  for 
money  ;  but,  when  ratified,  even  Algiers  is  too  wise  or  too 
just  to  disown  and  annul  its  obligation.  Thus  we  see,  neither 
the  ignorance  of  savages,  nor  the  principles  of  an  association 
for  piracy  and  rapine,  permit  a  nation  to  despise  its  engage 
ments.  If,  sir,  there  could  be  a  resurrection  from  the  foot  of 
the  gallows,  if  the  victims  of  justice  could  live  again,  collect 
together  and  form  a  society,  they  would,  however  loath,  soon 
find  themselves  obliged  to  make  justice,  that  justice  under 
which  they  fell,  the  fundamental  law  of  their  state.  They 
would  perceive  it  was  their  interest  to  make  others  respect, 
and  they  would  therefore  soon  pay  some  respect  themselves  to 
the  obligations  of  good  faith. 

IT  is  painful,  I  hope  it  is  superfluous,  to  make  even  the 
supposition,  that  America  should  furnish  the  occasion  of  this 
opprobrium.  No,  let  me  not  even  imagine,  that  a  republican 
government,  sprung,  as  our  own  is,  from  a  people  enlightened 
and  uncorrupted,  a  government  whose  origin  is  right,  and 
whose  daily  discipline  is  duty,  can,  upon  solemn  debate,  make 
its  option  to  be  faithless  ;  can  dare  to  act  what  despots  dare  not 
avow,  what  our  own  example  evinces  the  states  of  Barbary  are 
unsuspected  of.  No,  let  me  rather  make  the  supposition,  that 
Great  Britain  refuses  to  execute  the  treaty,  after  we  have  done 


64  SPEECH  ON  THE 

every  thing  to  carry  it  into  effect.  Is  there  any  language  of 
reproach  pungent  enough  to  express  your  commentary  on  the 
fact  ?  What  would  you  say,  or,  rather,  what  would  you  not  say  ? 
Would  you  not  tell  them,  wherever  an  Englishman  might 
travel,  shame  would  stick  to  him  :  he  would  disown  his  coun- 
try.  You  would  exclaim,  England,  proud  of  your  wealth,  and 
arrogant  in  the  possession  of  power,  blush  for  these  distinc 
tions,  which  become  the  vehicles  of  your  dishonour.  Such  a 
nation  might,  truly  say  to  corruption,  thou  art  my  father,  and  to 
the  worm,  thou  art  my  mother  and  my  sister.  We  should  say 
of  such  a  race  of  men,  their  name  is  a  heavier  burden  than 
their  debt.  -^ 

I  CAN  scarcely  persuade  myself  to  believe,  that  the  consider 
ation  I  have  suggested  requires  the  aid  of  any  auxiliary  ;  but, 
unfortunately,  auxiliary  arguments  are  at  hand.  Five  millions 
of  dollars,  and  probably  more,  on  the  score  of  spoliations  com 
mitted  on  our  commerce,  depend  upon  the  treaty  :  the  treaty 
offers  the  only  prospect  of  indemnity.  Such  r.edress  is  promis 
ed  as  the  merchants  place  some  confidence  in.  Will  you  inter 
pose  and  frustrate  thut  hope,  leaving  to  many  families  nothing 
but  beggary  and  despair  ?  It  is  a  smooth  proceeding  to  take  a 
vote  in  this  body  :  it  takes  less  than  half  an  hour  to  call  the 
yeas  and  nays,  and  reject  the  treaty.  But  what  is  the  effect  of 
it  ?  What  but  this  :  the  very  men,  formerly  so  loud  for  redress, 
such  fierce  champions,  that  even  to  ask  for  justice  was  too 
mean  and  too  slow,  now  turn  their  capricious  fury  upon  the 
sufferers,  and  say,  by  their  vote,  to  them  and  their  families, 
no  longer  eat  bread  :  petitioners  go  home  and  starve  :  we  can 
not  satisfy  your  wrongs,  und  our  resentments. 

WTILL  you  pay  the  sufferers  out  of  the  treasury  ?  No.  The 
answer  was  given  two  years  ago,  and  appears  on  our  journals. 
Will  you  give  them  letters  of  marque  and  reprisal,  to  pay 
themselves  by  force  ?  No.  That  is  war.  Besides  it  would  be 
an  opportunity  for  those  who  have  already  lost  much,  to  lose 
more.  Will  you  go  to  war  to  avenge  their  injury  ?  If  you  do, 
the  war  will  leave  you  no  money  to  indemnify  them.  If  it 
should  be  unsuccessful,  you  will  aggravate  existing  evils :  if 


BRITISH  TREATY.  85 

successful,  your  enemy  will  have  no  treasure  left  to  give  our 
merchants:  the  first  losses  will  be  confounded  with  much 
greater,  and  be  forgotten.  At  the  end  of  a  war  there  must  be 
a  negociation,  which  is  the  very  point  we  have  already  gained: 
and  why  relinquish  it  ?  And  who  will  be  confident,  that  the 
terms  of  the  negociation,  after  a  desolating  war,  would  be 
more  acceptable  to  another  house  of  representatives  than  the 
treaty  before  us  ?  Members  and  opinions  may  be  so  changed, 
that  the  treaty  would  then  be  rejected  for  being  what  the  pre 
sent  majority  say  it  should  be.  Whether  we  shall  go  on  making 
treaties  and  refusing  to  execute  them,  I  know  not :  of  this  1 
am  certain,  it  will  be  very  difficult  to  exercise  the  treaty-mak 
ing  power  on  the  new  principle,  with  much  reputation  or 
advantage  to  the  country. 

""THE  refusal  of  the  posts  (inevitable  if  we  reject  the  treaty) 
is  a  measure  too  decisive  in  its  nature  to  be  neutral  in  its  con 
sequences.  From  great  causes  we  are  to  look  for  great 
effects.  A  plain  and  obvious  one  will  be,  the  price  of  the 
Western  lands  will  fall :  settlers  will  not  choose  to  fix  their  habi 
tation  on  a  field  of  battle.  Those  who  talk  so  much  of  the 
interest  of  the  United  States  should  calculate,  how  deeply  it 
will  be  affected  by  rejecting  the  treaty ;  how  vast  a  tract  of 
wild  land  will  almost  cease  to  be  property.  This  loss,  let  it 
be  observed,  will  fall  upon  a  fund  expressly  devoted  to  sink 
the  national  debt.  What  then  are  we  called  upon  to  do  ? 
However  the  form  of  the  vote  and  the  protestations  of  many  may 
disguise  the  proceeding,  our  resolution  is  in  substance,  and  it 
deserves  to  wear  the  title  of  a  resolution,  to  prevent  the  sale 
of  the  Western  lands  and  the  discharge  of  the  publick  debt. 

WILL  the  tendency  to  Indian  hostilities  be  contested  by  any 
one  ?  Experience  gives  the  answer.  The  frontiers  were 
scourged  with  war,  until  the  negociation  with  Great  Britain  was 
far  advanced  ;  and  then  the  state  of  hostility  ceased.  Perhaps 
ihe  publick  agents  of  both  nations  are  innocent  of  fomenting 
the  Indian  war,  and  perhaps  they  are  not.  \Ve  ought  not, 
however,  to  expect  that  neighbouring  nations,  highly  irritated 
against  each  other,  will  neglect  the  friendship  of  the  savages. 


86  SPEECH  ON  THE 

The  traders  will  gain  an  infiueace,  and  will  abuse  it ;  and  who 
is  ignorant  that  their  passions  are  easily  raised  and  hardly 
restrained  from  violence  ?  Their  situation  will  oblige  them  to 
choose  between  this  country  and  Great  Britain,  in  case  the 
treaty  should  be  rejected  :  they  will  not  be  our  friends,  and  at 
the  same  time  the  friends  of  our  enemies. 

BUT  am  I  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  proving  this  point  \ 
Certainly  the  very  men  who  charged  the  Indian  war  on  the 
detention  of  the  posts,  will  call  for  no  other  proof  than  the 
recital  of  their  own  speeches.  It  is  remembered,  with  what 
emphasis,  with  what  acrimony,  they  expatiated  on  the  burden 
of  taxes,  <*nd  the  drain  of  blood  and  treasure  into  the  Western 
country,  in  consequence  of  Britain's  holding  the  posts.  Until 
the  posts  are  restored,  they  exclaimed,  the  treasury  and  the 
frontiers  must  bleed. 

IF  any,  against  all  these  proofs,  should  maintain,  that  the 
peace  with  the  Indians  will  be  stable  without  the  posts,  to  them 
I  will  urge  another  reply.  From  arguments  calculated  to  pro 
duce  conviction,  I  will  appeal  directly  to  the  hearts  of  those 
who  hear  me,  and  ask  whether  it  is  not  already  planted  there  ? 
I  resort  especially  to  the  convictions  of  the  Western  gentle 
men,  whether,  supposing  no  posts  and  no  treaty,  the  settlers 
will  remain  in  security  ?  Can  they  take  it  upon  them  to  say, 
that  an  Indian  peace,  under  these  circumstances,  will  prove 
firm  ?  No,  sir,  it  will  not  be  peace,  but  a  sword  ;  it  will  be  no 
better  than  a  lure  to  draw  victims  within  the  reach  of  the 
tomahawk. 

ON  this  theme,  my  emotions  are  unutterable.  If  I  could 
find  words  for  them,  if  my  powers  bore  any  proportion  to  my 
zeal,  I  would  swell  my  voice  to  such  a  note  of  remonstrance) 
it  should  reach  every  log-house  beyond  the  mountains.  I  would 
v  say  to  the  inhabitants,  wake  from  your  false  security  :  your 
cruel  dangers,  your  more  cruel  apprehensions  are  soon  to  be 
renewed  :  the  wounds,  yet  unhealed,  are  to  be  torn  open  again  : 
in  the  day  time,  your  path  through  the  woods  will  be  ambush 
ed  ;  the  darkness  of  midnight  will  glitter  with-  the  blaze  of 
your  dwellings.  You  arc  a  father — the  blood  of  your  sons  shall 


BRITISH  TREATY.  87" 

fatten  your  corn-field  :  you  are  a  mother—the  war  hoop  shall 
wake  the  sleep  of  the  cradle. 

ON  this  subject  you  need  not  suspect  any  deception  on  your 
feelings  :  it  is  a  spectacle  of  horrour,  which  cannot  be  over 
drawn.  If  you  have  nature  in  your  hearts,  they  will  speak  a 
language,  compared  with  which  all  I  have  said  or  can  say  will 
be  poor  and  frigid,  y 

WILL  it  be  whispered,  that  the  treaty  has  made  me  a  new 
champion  for  the  protection  of  the  frontiers.  It  is  known,  that 
my  voice  as  well  as  vote  have  been  uniformly  given  in  confor 
mity  with  the  ideas  I  have  expressed.  Protection  is  the  right 
of  the  frontiers  ;  it  .is  our  duty  to  give  it. 

WHO  will  accuse  me  of  wandering  out  of  the  subject  ?  Who 
will  say,  that  I  exaggerate  the  tendencies  of  our  measures  ? 
Will  any  one  answer  by  a  sneer,  that  all  this  is  idle  preaching. 
Will  any  one  deny,  that  we  are  bound,  and  I  would  hope  to 
good  purpose,  by  the  most  solemn  sanctions  of  duty  for  the 
vote  we  give  ?  Are  despots  alone  to  be  reproached  for  unfeel 
ing  indifference  to  the  tears  and  blood  of  their  subjects  ?  Are 
republicans  unresponsible  ?  Have  the  principles,  on  which  you 
ground  the  reproach  upon  cabinets  and  kings,  no  practical 
influence,  no  binding  force  ?  Are  they  merely  themes  of  idle 
declamation,  introduced  to  decorate  the  morality  of  a  news 
paper  essay,  or  to  furnish  pretty  topicks  of  harangue  from  the 
windows  of  that  state-house  ?  I  trust  it  is  neither  too  presump 
tuous  nor  too  late  to  ask  :  Can  you  put  the  dearest  interest  of 
society  at  risk,  without  guilt,  and  without  remorse  ? 

IT  is  vain  to  offer  as  an  excuse,  that  pubiick  men  are  not 
to  be  reproached  for  the  evils  that  may  happen  to  ensue  from 
their  measures.  This  is  very  true,  where  they  are  unforeseen 
or  inevitable.  Those  I  have  depicted  are  not  unforeseen : 
they  are  so  far  from  inevitable,  we  are  going  to  bring  them 
Into  being  by  our  vote  :  we  choose  the  consequences,  and 
become  as  justly  answerable  for  them,  as  for  the  measure  that 
we  know  will  produce  them. 

BY  rejecting  the  posts,  we  light  the  savage  fires,  we  bind 
the  victims.  This  day  we  undertake  to  render  account  to  the 


88  SPEECH  ON  THE 

widows  and  orphans  whom  our  decision  \vill  make,  to  the 
wretches  that  will  be  roasted  at  the  stake,  to  our  country,  and 
I  do  not  deem  it  too  serious  to  say,  to  conscience  and  to  God. 
We  are  answerable ;  and  if  duty  be  any  thing  more  than  a 
word  of  imposture,  if  conscience  be  not  a  bugbear,  we  are  pre 
paring  to  make  ourselves  as  wretched  as  our  country. 

THERE  is  no  mistake  in  this  cuse,  there  can  be  none  :  ex 
perience  has  already  been  the  prophet  of  events,  and  the  cries 
of  our  future  victims  have  already  reached  us.  The  Western 
inhabitants  are  not  a  silent  and  uncomplaining  sacrifice.  The 
voice  of  humanity  issues  from  the  shade  of  the  wilderness :  it 
exclaims,  that,  while  one  hand  is  held  up  to  reject  this  treaty, 
the  other  grasps  a  tomahawk.  It  summons  our  imagination 
to  the  scenes  that  will  open.  It  is  no  great  effort  of  the 
imagination  to  conceive  that  events  so  near  are  already  begun. 
I  can  fancy  that  I  listen  to  the  yells  of  savage  vengeance  and 
the  shrieks  of  torture  :  already  they  seem  to  sigh  in  the  Western 
wind ;  already  they  mingle  with  every  echo  from  the  moun 
tains. 

IT  is  not  the  part  of  prudence  to  be  inattentive  to  the  ten 
dencies  of  measures  :  where  there  is  any  ground  to  fear  that 
these  will  be  pernicious,  wisdom  and  duty  forbid  that  we  should 
tinder-rate  them.  If  we  reject  the  treaty,  will  our  peace  be 
as  safe  as  if  we  execute  it  with  good  faith  ?  I  do  honour  to  the 
intrepid  spirit  of  those  who  say  it  will.  It  was  formerly  un 
derstood  to  constitute  the  excellence  of  a  man's  faith,  to  believe 
without  evidence  and  against  it. 

BUT,  as  opinions  on  this  article  are  changed,  and  we  are 
called  to  act  for  our  countiy,  it  becomes  us  to  explore  the 
dangers  that  will  attend  its  peace,  and  avoid  them  if  we  can. 
Few  of  us  here,  and  fewer  still  in  proportion  of  our  constituents, 
will  doubt,  that,  by  rejecting,  all  those  dangers  will  be  aggra 
vated. 

THE  idea  of  war  is  treated  as  a  bugbear.  This  levity  is  at 
least  unseasonable,  and  most  of  all  unbecoming  some  who 
resort  to  it.  Who  has  forgotten  the  phiiippicks  of  1794  ?  The 
cry  then  was,  reparation ;  no  envoy ;  no  treaty ;  no  tedious 


BRITISH  TREATY.  8? 

ilelays.  Now  it  seems  the  passion  subsides,  or  at  least  the 
huny  to  satisfy  it.  Great  Britain,  say  they,  will  not  wage  war 
upon  us. 

IN  1794,  it  was  urged  by  those  who  now  say,  no  war,  that, 
if  we  built  frigates,  or  resisted  the  piracies  of  Algiers,  we 
could  not  expect  peace.  Now  they  give  excellent  comfort- 
truly.  Great  Britain  has  seized  our  vessels  and  cargoes  to  the 
amount  of  millions  ;  she  holds  the  posts  ;  she  interrupts  our 
trade,  say  they,  as  a  neutral  nation ;  and  these  gentlemen, 
formerly  so  fierce  for  redress,  assure  us,  in  terms  of  the 
sweetest  consolation,  Great  Britain  will  bear  all  this  patiently- 
But  let  me  ask  the  late  champions  of  our  rights,  will  our  na 
tion  bear  it  ?  Let  others  exult  because  the  aggressor  will  let 
our  wrongs  sleep  for  ever.  Will  it  add,  it  is  my  duty  to  ask, 
to  the  patience  and  quiet  of  our  citizens  to  see  their  rights 
abandoned  ?  Will  not  the  disappointment  of  their  hopes,  so 
long  patronised  by  the  government,  now  in  the  crisis  of  their 
being  realized,  convert  all  their  passions  into  fury  and  despair  ? 

ARE  the  posts  to  remain  for  ever  in  the  possession  of  Great 
Britain  ?  Let  those  who  reject  them,  when  the  treaty  offers  them 
to  our  hands,  say,  if  they  choose,  they  are  of  no  importance. 
If  they  are,  will  they  take  them  by  force  ?  The/  argument  I  am 
urging  would  then  come  to  a  point.  To  use  force  is  war ;  ta 
talk  of  treaty  again  is  too  absurd :  the  posts  and  redress  must 
come  from  voluntary  good  will,  treaty,  or  war.  The  conclu 
sion  is  plain :  if  the  state  of  peace  shall  continue,  so  will  the. 
British  possession  of  the  posts. 

LOOK  again  at  this  state  of  things:  on  the  sea  coast,  vast 
losses  uncompensated ;  on  the  frontier,  Indian  war,  and  actual 
encroachment  on  our  territory ;  every  where  discontent ;  re 
sentments  tenfold  more  fierce  because  they  will  be  impotent 
and  humbled  ;  national  discord  and  abasement.  The  disputes 
of  the  old  treaty  of  1783,  being  left  to  rankle,  will  revive  the 
almost  extinguished  animosities  of  that  period.  Wars  in  all 
countries,  and  most  of  all  in  such  as  are  free,  arise  from  the 
impetuosity  of  the  public  feelings.  The  despotism  of  Turkey 
is  often  obliged  by  clamour  to  unsheath  the  sword.  War- 
12 


90  SPEECH  ON  THE 

might  perhaps  be  delayed,  but  could  not  be  prevented:  the 
causes  of  it  would  remain,  would  be  aggravated,  would  be 
multiplied,  and  soon  become  intolerable.  More  captures, 
more  impressments  would  swell  the  list  of  our  wrongs,  and 
the  current  of  our  rage.  I  muke  no  calculation  of  the  arts  of 
those  whose  employment  it  has  been,  on  former  occasions,  to 
fan  the  fire  ;  I  say  nothing  of  the  foreign  money  and  emissaries 
that  might  foment  the  spirit  of  hostility,  because  the  state  of 
things  will  naturally  run  to  violence  :  with  less  than  their 
former  exertion,  they  would  be  successful. 
X  WILL  our  government  be  able  to  temper  and  restrain  the 
turbulence  of  such  a  crisis  ?  The  government,  alas !  will  be 
in  no  capacity  to  govern.  A  divided  people,  and  divided 
counsels  !  Shall  we  cherish  the  spirit  of  peace,  or  shew  the 
energies  of  war  ?  Shall  we  make  our  adversary  afraid  of  our 
strength,  or  dispose  him,  by  the  measures  of  resentment  and 
broken  faith,  to  respect  our  rights  ?  Do  gentlemen  rely  on  the 
state  of  peace,  because  both  nations  will  be  worse  disposed  to 
keep  it  ?  because  injuries,  and  insults  still  harder  to  endure, 
"will  be  mutually  offered  ? V 

SUCH  a  state  of  things  will  exist,  if  we  should  long  avoid 
war,  as  will  be  worse  than  war :  peace  without  security,  ac 
cumulation  of  injury  without  redress,  or  the  hope  of  it,  resent 
ment  against  the  aggressor,  contempt  for  ourselves,  intestine 
discord,  and  anarchy.  Worse  than  this  need  not  be  appre 
hended,  for  if  worse  could  happen,  anarchy  would  bring  it.  Is 
this  the  peace  gentlemen  undertake,  with  such  fearless  confi 
dence,  to  maintain  ?  Is  this  the  station  of  American  dignity, 
which  the  high-spirited  champions  of  our  national  independence 
and  honour  could  endure  ;  nay,  which  they  are  anxious  and 
almost  violent  to  seize  for  the  country  ?  What  is  there  in  the 
treaty  that  could  humble  us  so  low  ?  Are  they  the  men  to 
swallow  their  resentments^  who  so  lately  were  choking  with 
them  ?  If  in  the  case  contemplated'by  them,  it  should  be  peace, 
I  do  not  hesitate  to  declare,  it  ought  not  to  be  peace. 

Is  there  any  thing  in  the  prospect  of  the  interiour  state  of 
the  country,  to  encourage  us  to  aggravate  the  dangers  of  a 


BRITISH  TREATY.  91 

war  ?  Would  not  the  shock  of  that  evil  produce  another,  and 
shake  down  the  feeble  and  then  unbraced  structure  of  our 
government  ?  Is  this  a  chimera  ?  Is  it  going  off*  the  ground  of 
matter  of  fact  to  say,  the  rejection  of  the  appropriation  proceeds 
upon  the  doctrine  of  a  civil  war  of  the  departments.  Two 
branches  have  ratified  a  treaty  ;  and  we  are  going  to  set  it  aside. 
How  is  this  disorder  in  the  machine  to  be  rectified  ?  While  it 
exists,  its  movements  must  stop ;  and  when  we  talk  of  a 
remedy,  is  that  any  other  than  the  formidable  one  of  a  revolu 
tionary  interposition  of  the  people  ?  And  is  this,  in  the  judg 
ment  even  of  my  opposers,  to  execute,  to  preserve  the  con 
stitution,  and  the  publick  order  ?  Is  this  the  state  of  hazard,  if 
not  of  convulsion,  which  they  can  have  the  courage  to  contem 
plate  and  to  brave  ;  or  beyond  which  their  penetration  can 
reach  and  see  the  issue  ?  They  seem  to  believe,  and  they  act 
as  if  they  believed,  that  our  union,  our  peace,  our  liberty,  are 
invulnerable  and  immortal ;  as  if  our  happy  state  was  not  to  be 
disturbed  by  our  dissentions,  and  that  we  are  not  capable  of 
falling  from  it  by  our  unworthiness.  Some  of  them  have  no 
doubt  better  nerves  and  better  discernment  than  mine.  They 
can  see  the  bright  aspects  and  happy  consequences  of  all  this 
army  of  horrours.  They  can  see  intestine  discords,  our  govern 
ment  disorganized,  our  wrongs  aggravated,  multiplied  and  un- 
redressed,  peace  with  dishonour,  or  war  without  justice,  union 
or  resources,  in  "  the  calm  lights  of  mild  philosophy." 

BUT  whatever  they  may  anticipate  as  the  next  measure  of 
prudence  and  safety,  they  have  explained  nothing  to  the  house. 
After  rejecting  the  treaty,  what  is  to  be  the  next  step  ?  They 
must  have  foreseen  what  ought  to  be  done ;  they  have  doubt 
less  resolved  what  to  propose.  Why  then  are  they  silent  ? 
Dare  they  not  now  avow  their  plan  of  conduct,  or  do  they  wait 
until  our  progress  towards  confusion  shall  guide  them  in 
forming  it  ? 

LET  me  cheer  the  mind,  weary  no  doubt  and  ready  to 
despond  on  this  prospect,  by  presenting  another  which  it  is 
yet  in  our  power  to  realize.  Is  it  possible  for  a  real  American 
to  look  at  the  prosperity  of  this  country?  without  some  desire 


, 


92  SPEECH  ON  THK 

for  its  continuance,  without  some  respect  for  the  measures 
which,  many  will  say,  produced,  and  all  will  confess  have  pre 
served  it?  Will  he  not  feel  some  dread,  that  a  change  of 
system  will  reverse  the  scene  ?  The  well  grounded  fears  of  our 
citizens,  in  1794,  were  removed  by  the  treaty,  but  are  not 
forgotten.  Then  they  deemed  war  nearly  inevitable,  and 
Would  not  this  adjustment  have  been  considered  at  that  day  a& 
a  happy  escape  from  the  calamity  ?  The  great  interest  and  the 
general  desire  of  our  people  was  to  enjoy  the  advantages  of 
neutrality.  This  instrument,  however  misrepresented,  affords 
America  that  inestimable  security.  The  causes  of  our  dis 
putes  are  either  cut  up  by  the  roots,  or  referred  to  a  new 
negociation,  after  the  end  of  the  European  war.  This  was 
gaining  every  thing,  because  it  confirmed  our  neutrality,  by 
which  our  citizens  are  gaining  every  thing.  This  alone  would 
justify  the  engagements  of  the  government.  /  For,  when  the 
fiery  vapours  of  the  war  lowered  in  the  skirts  of  our  horizon, 
all  our  wishes  were  concentred  in  this  one,  that  we  might 
escape  the  desolation  of  the  storm.  This  treaty,  like  a  rain 
bow  on  the  edge  of  the  cloud,  marked  to  our  eyes  the  space 
where  it  was  raging,  and  afforded  at  the  same  time  the  sure 
prognostick  of  fair  weather.  If  we  reject  it,  the  vivid  colours 
will  grow  pale,  it  will  be  a  baleful  meteor  portending  tempest 
and  war.  V 

LET  us  not  hesitate  then  to  agree  to  the  appropriation  to 
cany  it  into  faithful  execution.  Thus  we  shall  save  the  faith 
of  our  nation,  secure  its  peace,  and  diffuse  the  spirit  of 
dence  and  enterprise  that  will  augment  its  prosperty. 
progress  of  wealth  and  improvement  is  wonderful,  and  some 
will  think,  too  rapid.  The  field  for  exertion  is  fruitful  and 
vast,  and  if  peace  and  good  government  should  be  preserved, 
the  acquisitions  of  our  citizens  are  not  so  pleasing  as  the 
proofs  of  their  industry,  as  the  instruments  of  their  future 
success.  The  rewards  of  exertion  go  to  augment  its  power. 
Profit  is  every  hour  becoming  capital.  The  vast  crop  of  our 
neutrality  is  all  seed  wheat,  and  is  sown  again,  to  swell,  almost 
beyond  calculation,  the  future  harvest  of  prosperity.  In  this 


BRITISH  TREATY.  93 

progress  what  seems  to  be  fiction  is  found  to  fall  short  of 
experience^ 

I  ROSE  to  speak  under  impressions  that  I  would  have  re 
sisted  if  I  could.  Those  who  see  me  will  believe,  that  the 
reduced  stute  of  my  health  has  unfitted  me,  almost  equally, 
for  much  exertion  of  body  or  mind.  Unprepared  for  debate 
by  careful  reflection  in  my  retirement,  or  by  long  attention 
here,  I  thought  the  resolution  I  had  taken,  to  sit  silent,  was 
imposed  by  necessity,  and  would  cost  me  no  effort  to  maintain. 
With  a  mind  thus  vacant  of  ideas,  and  sinking,  as  I  really  am, 
under  a  sense  of  weakness,  I  imagined  the  very  desire  of 
speaking  was  extinguished  by  the  persuasion  that  I  had  nothing 
to  say.  Yet  when  I  come  to  the  moment  of  deciding  the  vote, 
I  start  back  with  dread  from  the  edge  ofjrtie^^nto  which  we 
are  plunging?  Tft  my  view,  even  the  minutes  I  have  spent  in 
expostulation  have  their  value,  because  they  protract  the 
crisis,  and  the  short  period  in  which  alone  we  may  resolve  to 
escape  it. 

I  HAVE  thus  been  led  by  my  feelings  to  speak  more  at 
length  than  I  had  intended.  Yet  I  have  perhaps  as  little 
personal  interest  in  the  event  as  any  one  here.  There  is,  I 
believe,  no  member,  who  will  not  think  his  chance  to  be  a 
witness  of  the  consequences  greater  than  mine.  If,  however, 
the  vote  should  pass  to  reject,  and  a  spirit  should  rise,  as  it 
will,  with  the  publick  disorders  to  make  "  confusion  worse 
confounded,"  even  I,  slender  and  almost  broken  as  my  hold 
upon  life  is,  may  outlive  the  government  and  constitution  of 
my  country. 


C    94    ] 
LAOCOOX,  N°.I. 

First  publislted  in  tfie  Boston  Gazette,  April,  1799. 

In  the  two  following  essays  the  party  aiming  to  subvert  the  federal  cause  and  administrat'on, 
are  termed  jacobins.  "All  who  from  credulity,  envy,  angtr,  and  pride,  from  ambition  or 
*  cupidity,  urj  impatient  under  the  restra;nts,  or  impatient  for  the  trappings  of  power," 
are  arranged  in  one  general  class,  and  denominated  from  that  portion  of  .it,  which  the 
authour  considered  most  dangerous.  In  the  other  parts  of  his  writings,  he  admits  a  difference 
in  the  character  of  those  who  compose  a  faction  in  a  republican  government.  A  democrat 
believes  in  the  success  of  impossible  experiments,  and  that  it  is  easy  to  govern  without  a 
government.  A  jacobin,  void  of  this  credulity  himself,  seizes  upon  it  in  others,  and  uses 
it  as  a  powerful  instrument  of  h's  'unbitlon.  But  they  all  reason,  act,  and  feel,  in  a  manner 
unfavourable  to  a  truly  republican  system,  of  which  the  permanent  puWick  good  is  the 
proper  object  and  result.  Hence  he  insisted,  that  there  are  essent'-ally  but  two  divis;ons  of 
the  active  citizens,  the  federal  or  republican,  and  the  democrat  ck  or  jacobin  party.  At 
the  time  Laocoon  wr.s  writti  n,  the  leaders  of  the  democratick  party  were  making  despe 
rate  efforts  to  bring  federal  or  true  republican  principles,  measures,  and  men.  into  hatred  ; 
their  spirit  of  falsehood  and  bitter  malignity,  excited  the  abhorrence  of  the  writer,  while 
the  apathy  and  presumption  of  the  friends  of  government  shocked  and  dismayed  him. 
Writing  under  such  impressions  and  feelings  ;  indignant  at  the  hypocritical  and  audacious 
pretensions  of  false  patriotism,  and  agitated  and  overwhelmed  by  the  foresight  of  the  ruin 
that  would  follow  the  dowufal  of  the  federal  system,  he  does  not  mark  the  grades  of  deme 
rit  in  those  against  whom  he  inve  jhs.  He  speaks  of  the  party  generally  under  the  name 
of  those  guides  and  masters,  by  whom  it  is  combined,  animated,  directed,  and  employed, 


labour  has  been  recently  bestowed  on  the  proposition 
that  the  sect  of  jacobins  is  not  to  be  converted,  and  in  enforc 
ing  the  obvious  duty  on  all  honest  men  to  unite  with  energy 
to  resist  them.  This  alarm,  it  will  be  objected,  is  for  ever 
sounding  ;  and  it  is  replied,  for  ever  sounding  to  the  deaf. 
Honest  men,  it  is  allowed,  reasonably  expect  to  enjoy  tran 
quillity  under  the  protection  of  government  ;  instead  of  which,  it 
is  not  denied,  that  they  are  incessantly  summoned  to  their 
posts,  to  afford  to  government  the  protection  they  had  hoped 
it  would  be  in  a  condition  to  bestow.  The  cry  of  danger  dis 
turbs  their  beloved  and  promised  ease,  disappoints  their  fond 
hopes,  disgraces  their  splendid  theories,  and  saddens  that  futu 
rity  which  fancy  had  adorned  like  the  millenium.  To  the 
inhabitants  of  a  besieged  town  fatigue  renders  repose  more  wel 
come  and  more  necessary  ;  the  roar  of  cannon  does  not  awake 
them.  Familiar  dangers  lose  half  their  terrour,  and  we  yield, 


LAOCOON.  95 

with  a  weakness  which  we  will  not  detect  and  cannot  resist,  to 
the  delusions  of  every  rumour  without  evidence,  and  every  hope 
that  rises  up  to  console  us  against  it.  The  federalist  rises  like 
the  sluggard  from  his  bed  at  the  cry  of  fire,  hoping  that  a  little 
more  water  will  quench  it,  and  that  he  may  then  return  to  sleep 
undisturbed.  It  is  not  easy,  perhaps  it  is  not  possible,  to  make 
the  citizens  political  soldiers,  to  persuade  them  to  sleep  on 
their  arms,  ready  at  the  beat  of  drum,  to  repel  the  assaults  of 
the  jacobins,  on  law  and  liberty.  It  will  even  sink  their  esti 
mate  of  the  value  of  civil  liberty,  to  know  that  it  gives  joy, 
gives  safety,  honour,  gives  every  thing  but  sleep.  They  will 
be  apt,  in  obedience  to  the  suggestions  of  spleen  and  weariness, 
to  say,  that  the  single  thing  it  denies  is  worth  more  than  the 
million  it  bestows,  and  joyfully  to  embrace  a  political  condi 
tion,  which  would  somewhat  abate  the  pretension  of  each  indi 
vidual  to  be  a  sovereign,  and  require  a  less  painful  effort  to 
maintain  it. 

IT  is,  indeed,  exceedingly  obvious,  that  many,  if  not  most 
persdiis  have  chosen  the  state  of  the  highest  liberty,  without 
having  counted  how  much  it  must  cost  to  preserve  it.  The 
calumnies  vented  against  president  ADAMS'S  book,  are  signal 
proofs  of  the  crude  and  indocile  state  of  popular  opinion 
amongst  us.  He  has  ingeniously  described  evils  and  faithful 
ly  and  wisely  pointed  out  their  remedies :  yet  he  is  accused  of 
being  no  friend  to  republicks,  because  he  well  understands 
their  nature,  and  seriously  dreads  their  dangers.  The  very 
factions  who  create  and  aggravate  those  dangers,  and  who 
neither  understand  nor  desire  those  remedies,  honour  their 
own  ignorance  with  the  name  of  principle,  and  claim  for  their 
licentiousness  the  exclusive  title  of  republicanism.  If  it  fails, 
it  is  they  who  will  make  it  fail.  The  impediments  to  its  suc 
cess,  which  arise  from  the  structure  of  the  human  heart,  create 
surfirise,  though  they  were  obviously  inevitable,  and  some 
thing  like  despair,  though  we  know  that  they  may  be  sur 
mounted. 

Faction  will  freedom,  like  i*s  shade,  pursue  ; 

Vet,  like  the  shadow,  proves  the  substance  true. 


9  LAOCOON. 

WE  have  to  sustain  an  everlasting  conflict  with  faction*  a 
foe,  destined  to  be  the  companion  of  liberty,  and,  at  last,  its 
assassin.  However  we  may  flatter  ourselves  with  the  idea,  that 
our  blows  will  prove  fatal  to  this  foe,  yet,  though  smitten  to  the 
ground,  it  will  rise  again  like  Anteus,  untired,  invulnerable, 
and  immortal.  Nothing  can  more  strikingly  illustrate  the 
folly  of  the  jacobins,  in  their  pretensions  to  a  superiour  vigi 
lance  for  the  people,  than  the  natural  and  indeed  experienced 
tendency  of  their  turbulence  to  strengthen  the  powers  of  gov 
ernment.  The  danger  these  men  create,  must  be  repelled  by 
arming  our  rulers  with  force  enough,  and  appointing  them  to 
watch  in  our  stead.  Thus  good  citizens  find,  that  they  must 
submit  to  laws  of  the  more  rigour,  because  the  desperate  licen 
tiousness  and  wickedness  of  the  bad,  could  not  be  otherwise 
Restrained.  If  the  laws  they  complain  of  really  abridge  liberty, 
as  they  pretend,  which,  however,  is  positively  denied,  it  is  their 
own  wickedness  that  has  supplied  to  government  the  pretext, 
and  varnished  it  over  with  the  appearance  of  necessity.  Quiet, 
satisfied  people,  need  the  least  law  ;  but  as  the  jacobins  are  of 
a  very  different  character,  it  is  clear  that  all  the  fruit  of  their 
perverseness  must  be  to  abridge  the  liberty  of  the  people  ;  and 
this  too  if  they  fail  of  success.  But  if  they  should  prevail,  the 
people  would  be  crushed,  as  in  France,  under  tyranny  more 
vindictive,  unfeeling,  and  rapacious,  than  that  of  Tiberius,  Nero, 
or  Caligula,  or  any  single  despot  that  ever  existed.  The  rage 
of  one  man  will  be  tired  by  repetition  of  outrage,  or  it  may  be 
eluded  by  art  or  by  flight.  It  seldom  smites  the  obscure,  who 
arc,  many,  but,  like  a  gust,  uproots  chiefly  the  great  trees  that 
overtop  the  forest.  A  mobocracy,  however,  is  always  usurped 
by  the  worst  men  in  the  most  corrupt  times ;  in  a  period  of 
violence  by  the  most  violent.  It  is  a  Briareus  with  a  thousand 
hands,  each  bearing  a  dagger ;  a  Cerberus  gaping  with  ten  thou 
sand  throats,  all  parched  and  thirsting  for  fresh  blood.  It  is 
a  genuine  tyranny,  but  of  all  the  least  durable,  yet  the  most 
destructive  while  it  lasts.  The  power  of  a  despot,  like  the 
ardour  of  a  summer's  sun,  dries  up  the  grass,  but  the  roots 
remain  fresh  in  the  soil;  a  mob-government,  like  a  West- 


LAOCOON.  97 

India  hurricane,  instantly  strews  the  fruitful  earth  with  promis 
cuous  ruins,  and  turns  the  sky  yellow  with  pestilence.  Men 
inhale  a  vapour  like  the  Sirocco,  and  die  in  the  open  air  for 
want  of  respiration.  It 'is  a  winged  curse  that  envelops  the 
obscure  as  well  as  the  distinguished,  and  is  wafted  into  the  lurk 
ing  places  of  the  fugitives.  It  is  not  doing  justice  to  licentious 
ness,  to  compare  it  to  a  wind  which  ravages  the  surface  of  the 
earth  ;  it  is  an  earthquake  that  loosens  its  foundations,  burying 
in  an  hour  the  accumulated  wealth  and  wisdom  of  ages.  Those3 
who,  after  the  calamity,  would  reconstruct  the  edifice  of  the 
publick  liberty,  will  be  scarely  able  to  find  the  model  of  the  arti 
ficers,  or  even  the  ruins.  Mountains  have  split  and  filled  the 
fertile  vallies,  covering  them  with  rocks  and  gravel ;  rivers  have 
changed  their  beds ;  populous  towns  have  sunk,  leaving  only 
frightful  chasms,  out  of  which  are  creeping  the  remnant  of 
living  wretches,  the  monuments  and  the  victims  of  despair. 
This  is  no  exaggerated  description.  Behold  France,  that  open 
hell,  still  ringing  with  agonies  and  blasphemies,  still  smoking 
with  sufferings  and  crimes,  in  which  we  see  their  state  of  tor 
ment,  and  perhaps  our  future  state.  There  we  see  the  wretch 
edness  and  degradation  of  a  people,  who  once  had  the  offer  of 
liberty,  but  have  trifled  it  away  ;  and  there  we  have  seen  crimes 
so  monstrous,  that,  even  after  we"  know  they  have  been  perpe 
trated,  they  still  seem  incredible. 

IF,  however,  the  real  people  will  wake,  when  their  own 
government  is  in  danger ;  if  like  a  body  of  minute-men  they 
will  rally  in  its  defence,  we  may  long  preserve  our  excellent 
system  unimpaired  in  the  degree  of  its  liberty  ;  we  may  pre 
serve  every  thing  but  our  tranquillity. 

IT  is  however  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  excite  and  main 
tain  as  much  zeal  and  ardour  in  defence  of  government,  as 
will  animate  the  jacobins  for  its  subversion  ;  for  to  them  action 
is  ease,  to  us  it  is  effort :  to  be  at  rest  costs  them  more  con 
straint,  than  us  to  stir.  The  machinery  of  our  zeal  is  wrought 
by  a  feeble  and  intermitting  momentum,  and  is  impeded  by  its 
own  friction  ;  their  rage  beats  like  the  pulse  of  life,  and  to 
stop  it  would  be  mortal.  Like  the  whirlwind  it  clears  away 
13 


98  LAOCOON. 

obstacles,  and  gathers  speed  in  its  progress.     Any  great  exer 
tion  not  only  tires,  but  disgusts  the  federalists  :  their  spirit, 
after  flaming  brightly,  soon  sleeps  in  its  embers  ;  but  the  jaco 
bins,  like  salamanders,  can  breathe  only  in  fire.      Like  toads, 
they  suck  no  aliment  from  the  earth  but  its  poisons.      When 
they  rest  in  their  lurking  places,  as  they  did  after  the  publica 
tion  of  the  despatches,  it  is,  like  serpents  in  winter,  the  better 
to  concoct  their  venom  ;  and  when  they  are  in  action,  it  is  to 
shed  it.    Without  digressing  to  make  an  analysis  of  the  jaco 
bin  character,  whether  it  is  envy  that  sickens  at  the  fame  of 
superiours,  cupidity  that  seeks  political  power  for  the  sake  of 
plunder,  or  ambition  that  considers  plunder  as  the  instrument 
to  get  power ;  whether  their  characters  are  formed  by  the  weak 
facility  of  their  faith,  or  their  faith  determined  by  the  sour, 
malignant,  and  suspicious  cast  of  their  temperament,  yet  all 
agree  in  this  one  point,  all  are  moved  by  some  fixed  prejudice 
or  strong  passion,  some  powerful  spring  of  action,  so  blended 
with  self-interest,  or  self-love,  and  so  exalted  into  fanaticism, 
that  the  ordinary  powers  of  the  man,  and  the   extraordinary 
powers  conferred  on  the   enthusiast,  are   equally  devoted  to 
their  cause  of  anarchy.      Hatred  of  the  government  becomes 
a  mania,  a  dementia  quoad  Aoc,  and  their  dread  of  all  power  but 
their  own,  resembles  the  hydrophobia,  baffling  our  attempts  to 
describe  its  nature  or  its  remedies.     These  are  the  fanaticks 
whom  the  federalists  must  oppose  ;  and  what  in  common  times 
is  to  excite  their  zeal  and  secure  the  constancy  of  their  opposi 
tion  ?  A  sense  of  duty,  which  a  few  men  of  abstraction  will 
deduce  from  just  principles,  and  the  foresight  of  a  few  more, 
who  will  be  terrified  by  the  tendencies  of  democracy  to  anar 
chy  ?  But  sober  duty  and  a  timorous  forecast  are  feeble  antag 
onists  against  jacobinism  ;  it  is  flat  tranquillity  against  passion  ; 
dry  leaves  against  the  whirlwind ;  the  weight  of  gun  powder 
against,  its  kindled  force.     Such  federalists  may  serve  as  wea 
thercocks  to  show  how  the   wind  blows,  but  are  no  shelter 
against  its  violence.     The  quiet  citizens  may  be  compared  to 
the  still  water  in  the  lake  ;  the  acobins  to  that  part  of  it  which 
fails  over  a  cataract  at  its  outlet :  the  former  having  a  thousand 


LAOCOON.  99 

times  the  greatest  mass,  but  no  energy,  and  scarcely  motion 
enough  to  keep  it  sweet ;  the  latter  dashed  into  foam,  and 
scooping  deeper  channels  in  the  rocks  of  adamant.  To 
weight  we  must  impart  motion  ;  correct  good  sense  must 
acquire  the  energy  of  zeal.  A  score  of  absurd  cant  opinions 
must  be  scouted,  all  which  tend  to  make  us  like  the  jacobin 
designs  a  little  more,  and  to  dread  and  abhor  their  agents  a 
little  less.  Take  a  specimen  of  the  proselyting  logick  :  the 
jacobins,  they  tell  us,  are  many  of  them  honest  men,  but  misled. 
Whether  they  will  long  remain  honest,  yet  the  associates  of 
knaves  and  their  fellow  workers  of  iniquity,  may  be  doubted. 
If  the  invectives  against  those,  who  insist  on  being  called 
honest,  among  the  jacobins,  are  "  too  harsh  and  acrimonious" 
to-day,  they  will  by  to-morrow,  or  the  next  day,  be  sufficient 
ly  assimilated  to  the  company  they  keep,  and  the  designs 
they  pursue,  to  merit  them  :  they  get  a  character  for  life 
only  one  day  too  soon.  Besides,  it  is  not  the  character  of  an 
odd  man  or  two,  or  at  most  of  half  a  dozen  in  a  state,  that 
happens  to  have  a  head  too  thick  to  admit,  or  too  hot  to  yield 
to  the  principles  of  the  party,  that  is  to  denominate  the  exact 
dark  hue  of  the  vice,  or  the  precise  measure  of  infamy  that 
belongs  of  right  to  the  party.  Look  at  France,  see  jacobin 
ism  at  home,  where,  neither  ashamed  of  its  character,  nor 
afraid  of  its  punishment,  it  indulges  the  unrestrained  pro 
pensities  of  its  nature,  and  then  decide,  reader,  if  you  can, 
that  the  victims  of  law  are  a  worse  set  of  men  than  its  con 
querors. 

IT  must  be  remembered  too,  that  publick  opinion  is  the  great 
auxiliary  of  good  government.  Where  can  its  weight  fall  so 
properly  as  on  the  conspirators  who  disturb  its  tranquillity 
and  plot  its  subversion?  The  man,  who,  from  passion  or 
folly,  or  bad  company,  happens  to  believe,  that  liberty  will 
rise,  when  government  sinks,  may  be  less  criminal,  but  little 
less  contemptible  for  his  sincerity.  If  a  mad  man  should 
poison  a  spring,  because  he  fancies,  that  all,  who  drink  and 
die,  will  go  to  heaven  and  be  happy,  is  he  to  be  soothed  and 


100  LAOCOOX. 

indulged  ?  Will  you  let  him  have  his  way  ?  Are  you  not  to 
tell  those  who  are  thirsty,  and  about  to  drink  the  poisonous 
water,  that  it  is  death  ?  Will  it  be  against  "  candour  and 
decency"  to  tell  them,  that  the  man  is  mad?  The  gentle 
eriticks  on  the  style  of  federal  writers  would  have  that  scorn 
Withheld,  which  is  almost  the  only  thing  that  actually  re 
strains  the  jacobins  from  mischief;  that  scorn,  which  makes 
those  who  might  be  misled  ashamed  to  join  them.  The  fac 
tious  have  the  cunning  to  say,  that  the  bitterness  of  their 
spirit  is  owing  to  the  harsh  and  acrimonious  treatment  they 
receive  ;  as  if  reproach  had  made  them  jacobins  ;  whereas 
it  is  jacobinism  that  extorts  reproach.  Our  government  has 
not  armies,  nor  a  hierarchy,  nor  an  extensive  patronage.  In 
stead  of  these  auxiliaries  of  other  governments,  let  it  have 
the  sword  of  public  opinion  drawn  in  its  defence,  and  not  only 
drawn  but  whetted  by  satire  to  an  edge  to  hew  its  adversaries 
clown.  Let  jacobin  vice  be  seen  as  a  monster,  and  let  not 
a  mock  candour  pity,  till  we  embrace  it.  Other  governments 
jnay  stand,  though  not  very  steadily,  if  publick  opinion  be  only 
neuter  :  but  our  system  has  so  little  intrinsick  energy,  that 
this  soul  of  the  republick's  soul  must  not  only  approve,  but 
co-operate.  The  vain,  the  timid,  and  trimming  must  be  made 
by  examples  to  see  that  scorn  smites,  and  blasts,  and  withers 
like  lightning  the  knaves  that  mislead  them.  Then  let  the 
misled  many  come  off  and  leave  the  party  if  they  will  ;  if  not, 
let  them  club  it  with  them  for  the  infamy. 

A  FRAME  of  government  less  free  and  popular  might  per 
haps  have  been  left  to  take  some  care  of  itself;  but  the 
people  choose  to  have  it  as  it  is,  and,  therefore,  they  must 
not  complain  of  the  burden,  but  come  forward  and  support 
it :  it  has  not  strength  to  stand  alone  without  such  help 
from  the  wise  and  honest  citizens.  The  time  to  do  this,  is 
at  the  elections.  There,  if  any  where,  the  sovereignty  of 
the  citizen  is  to  be  exercised ;  and  there  the  privilege  is  open 
'to  the  most  excessive  and  most  fatal  abuse. 


LAOCOON.  101 

at  last  the  jacobins  have  taken  their  post,  and  here 
they  have  intrenched  themselves  to  assail  our  sober  and 
orderly  liberty.  Here  we  see  of  late,  indeed  within  a  single 
year,  an  almost  total  change  in  the  tacticks,  and  management 
of  parties.  The  jacobins  have  at  last  made  their  own  disci 
pline  perfect:  they  are  trained,  officered,  regimented  and 
formed  to  subordination,  in  a  manner  that  our  militia  have 
never  yet  equalled.  Emissaries  are  sent  to  every  class  of  men, 
and  even  to  every  individual  man,  that  can  be  gained.  Every 
threshing  floor,  every  husking,  every  party  at  work  on  a 
house-frame  or  raising  a  building,  the  very  funerals  are 
infected  with  bawlers  or  whisperers  against  government.  In 
one  of  our  towns,  it  is  a  fact,  that  the  vote  would  have  been 
unanimous  for  our  worthy  chief  magistrate;  but  a  turbulent 
man  who  kept  two  great  dogs,  but  could  not  keep  his  estate, 
had  influence  enough  to  gain  five  or  six  votes  for  the  anti- 
candidate  :  the  only  complaint  he  had  to  urge  agaiiist  the 
governour  was,  that  he  had  signed  the  act  for  the  dog  tax. 

THE  extreme  industry  of  this  faction  shews  the  extent  of 
their  designs ;  even  the  town  governments  are  not  below 
their  scheme  of  influence.  It  is  plain,  that  they  intend  to  • 
get  the  state  government  into  their  hands.  They  wrill  make 
the  attempt,  and  if  they  get  only  one-fifth  jacobin  members, 
they  will  try  again  next  year,  never  despairing  of  their  final 
success  :  should  they  succeed,  they  would  use  the  power  of, 
Massachusetts  against  the  laws  and  government  of  the  United 
States.  No  longer  hoping  much  aid  from  the  fleets  and 
armies  of  France,  which  they  but  lately  declared  they  wished 
to  see  on  our  shores  and  coast,  they  rely  on  themselves.  In 
every  state  they  are  exerting  themselves  rather  more  like 
an  armed  force  beating  up  for  recruits,  than  a  sect  of  politi 
cal  disputants ;  and  it  is  as  certain  as  any  future  event  can 
be,  that  they  will  take  arms  against  the  laws  as  soon  as  they 
dare  ;  probably  within  a  year,  if  they  get  the  countenance  of 
the  New-England  state  governments.  They  are  already  in 
arms  in  Pennsylvania?  and  Virginia  holds  forth  all  possible 


102  IvAOCOON. 

encouragement  to  their  rising,  by  resolutions  and  remon 
strances  calculated  to  excite  civil  war,  and  to  infuse  into  the 
bosoms  of  the  factious  all  the  fury  with  which  such  wars  are 
carried  on. 

IF  they  would  rise  and  try  the  issue  in  the  field,  they 
would  be  beaten.  Let  them  then  come  out ;  but  while  they 
depend  on  lies  and  industry  in  spreading  them,  they  will 
beat  us. 

THEY  are  overmatched  by  the  federalists  in  argument. 
Every  publick  question,  that  has  been  keenly  investigated, 
and  sifted  by  the  political  writers  and  debaters  on  both  sides, 
has  been  clearly  decided  against  them.  In  the  resources  of 
money  and  that  sort  of  credit,  which  grows  out  of  confidence 
in  the  virtue  and  morals  of  political  men,  the  jacobins  are 
weak  indeed.  The  federalists,  throughout  New-England  at 
least,  probably  pay  nineteen  shillings  in  the  pound  of  the 
taxes;  and  as  to  credit,  the  chiefs  of  the  party  would  consi 
der  an  inquiry  into  their  title  to  any  as  a  cruel  irony.  For 
talents  as  statesmen  the  New-England  jacobin  leaders  are 
despicable  ;  their  ignorance  of  commerce,  of  finance,  and  of 
the  u  diplomatick  skill"  of  France,  is  not  only  obvious,  but  they 
are  concerned  to  urge  the  last  as  an  excuse,  for  if  they  are 
not  ignorant  they  are  wicked  :  it  is  possible  they  are  both. 
As  to  talents  in  the  field,  on  which  side  do  they  appear  ?  The 
reader  may  be  left  to  look  up  jacobin  generals  and  heroes. 

WITH  all  these  undoubted  titles  to  contempt,  are  the  jaco 
bins  to  be  despised  ?  Individually,  it  may  be  so ;  though  great 
numbers  are  rather  to  be  pitied  ;  but,  collectively,  they  are 
formidable,  and  a  party  is  never  more  to  be  feared  than  when 
it  is  despised.  Then  they  are  let  alone  to  undermine  the 
pillars  of  the  publick  order  ;  then  it  happens,  as  at  the  pre 
sent  moment,  that  they  bestir  themselves  to  get  jacobins 
elected  into  the  general  court ;  and  the  friends  of  govern 
ment,  despising  their  foe,  sleep  in  a  dangerous  security. 

THE  jacobins  know,  that  they  are  as  yet  weak  in  force, 
though  powerful  in  lies  and  low  cunning.  They  will  not 


LAOCOON.  103 

appear  in  arms  at  present,  for  that  would  make  their  weak 
ness  the  antagonist  of  our  strength.  But  lies  and  cunning 
are  always  formidable  at  elections  :  thus  they  oppose  their 
strength  to  our  weakness ;  we  cannot  and  will  not  resort  to 
lies.  But  we  can  overmatch  them  when  we  take  the  alarm 
in  season,  and  rouse  the  federal  zeal :  that  zeal  has  more 
than  once  saved  the  country.  Now  is  the  time  and  the  occa 
sion  again  to  display  it,  for  the  faction  turns  its  evil  eyes  to 
the  elections  of  the  house  of  representatives  of  the  state ; 
and  if  they  obtain  even  a  large  minority,  they  will  spread  the 
infection  with  more  ardour  than  even  a  majority,  as  minori 
ties  are  ever  the  most  industrious  and  most  firmly  united.  So 
large  a  mass  of  poison  in  the  general  court,  lying  in  fer 
mentation  for  a  year,  would  vitiate  and  corrupt  our  political 
health ;  and  by  another  year  a  jacobin  majority  would  appeal- 
there  to  overturn,  and  overturn,  and  overturn,  till  property- 
shall  take  wings,  and  true  liberty  and  good  government  find 
their  graves.  By  getting  a  majority  of  jacobins  into  the 
New-England  state  legislatures,  they  would  make  civil  war, 
disunion,  and  perhaps  a  foreign  yoke,  the  lot  of  the  present 
generation.  Friends  of  virtue,  if  you  will  not  attend  the 
election,  and  lend  to  liberty  the  help  of  your  votes,  within 
two  years  you  will  have  to  defend  her  cause  with  your 
swords. 


LAOCOON,  NO.  II. 

TO  some  the  warmth  of  the  preceding  number  of  Laocoou 
will  appear  excessive,  and  to  others  altogether  superfluous  : 
excessive,  because,  they  urge,  the  feelings  of  the  jacobins 
ought  to  be  treated  with  more  tenderness,  and  their  designs 
with  more  candour  ;  and  superfluous,  because  the  political 
sky  is  bright  and  unclouded,  promising  the  long  continuance 
of  fair  weather.  The  adoption  of  either  of  these  opinions 


104  LAOCOOK.. 

would  have  an  influence  with  the  writer  ;  the  first  would 
change  his  style,  the  latter  impose  silence.  Faction  is  an 
adherence  to  interests  foreign  to  the  interests  of  the  state  : 
there  is  such  a  faction  amongst  us  devoted  to  France.  He 
believes  that  the  jacobin  faction  is  composed,  like  every 
other,  of  ambitious  knaves  who  mislead,  and  of  a  weak  and 
infatuated  rubble  who  are  misled.  Among  the  latter  are 
numbers  who  set  out  honest,  and,  while  they  continue  so, 
they  are  deserving  of  some  indulgence,  and  there  is  some 
hope  of  reclaiming  a  -very  few  of  them  ;  but  if  they  travel 
far  on  the  party  road,  or  associate  long  with  the  desperadoes 
in  the  van,  who  explore  the  thorny  and  crooked  by-ways, 
they  will  not  remain  honest.  They  will  be  corrupted,  and 
so  deeply,  that,  in  every  approach  towards  civil  war  and 
revolution,  the  dupes,  who  sincerely  believe  the  whole  creed 
of  their  party,  will  be  found  ready  to  go  the  farthest.  After 
they  have  thrown  off  all  political  duty,  the  remains  of  other 
moral  principles,  which  the  Jihilosofihers  would  call  the  pre 
judices  of  education,  will  be  just  sufficient  to  prevent  remorse, 
or  to  stifle  it.  There  is  a  sophistry  in  all  the  passions,  and 
that  of  every  strong  one  is  almost  always  convincing.  We 
see  accordingly  that  men  of  some  morals,  when  they  run 
politically  mad,  far  from  flinching  from  the  debasing  com 
pany  of  knaves,  whom  party  dubs  patriots^  make  open  pro 
fession  of  their  monstrous  principles,  and  hardily  vindicate 
their  most  desperate  designs.  It  is  a  fact,  the  talk  of  the 
jacobins,  and  even  their  printed  threats  are  to  demolish  bank 
property  and  funded  debt,  and  to  wreak  vengeance  on  the 
aristocrats,  meaning  the  possessors  of  property.  How  many 
professors  of  the  Christian  religion  have  seen  with  compla 
cency,  nay  with  joy  and  exultation,  the  downfal  of  priests, 
and  creeds,  and  churches  in  France.  The  unspeakable  cru 
elties  and  crimes  exercised  against  catholics,  they  tell  us, 
will  introduce  the  true  worship,  and  that  they  admire,  and 
we  are  bound  to  approve,  proceedings  that  are  so  wicked, 
because  they  will  be  so  useful.  The  sophistry  that  can  thus 


LAOCOOX.  103- 

bilence  conscience  and  varnish  crimes,  has  no  less  succeeded 
in  blinding  the  understandings  of  these  honest  jacobins  (so 
called)  to  the  absolute  falsehood  of  their  political  notions. 
France  has  confessedly  lost  liberty,  and  the  spirit  and  love  of 
it,  and  has  become  infatuated  with  the  passion  for  rapine  and 
conquest ;  yet  they  still  insist,  that,  though  France  has  not 
liberty  at  present,  she  will  have  it.  After  the  revolutionary 
storm,  there  will  be  a  delightful  calm,  when  reason  only  will 
be  heard,  and  nothing  but  the  equal  rights  of  man  desired  or 
regarded  :  and  as  to  the  conquest  of  other  nations,  aristocra 
cies  or  corruptions  of  democracy  fell  in  Switzerland,  and  the 
universal  domination  of  France  will  multiply  republicks  and 
demolish  thrones.  Is  the  writer  to  blame,  if  he  feels  contempt 
for  opinions  like  these  ?  If,  notwithstanding  their  absurdity,  and 
indeed  for  the  very  reason  that  they  are  absurd,  he  sees  that; 
they  arc  contagious,  and  knows  that  they  arc  dangerous  ;  if  he 
sees  their  propagators  formidable  by  their  zeal,  and  the  more 
formidable  for  its  blindness,  digging  their  mines  and  laying* 
their  trains  of  gun-powder  to  blow  up  the  temple  of  liberty,  is  it 
possible  for  him  to  feel  contempt  in  silence,  or  can  he  express 
it  without  a  mixture  of  detestation  and  abhorrence  ?  The  party 
who  thus  labour  to  destroy  all  that  we  have  toiled  and  fought 
for,  and  sworn  to  preserve,  is  surely,  collectively  speaking, 
the  proper  object  of  our  considerate  indignation  ;  nor  can  there 
be  any  unfitncss,  any  want  of  candour,  any  departure  from  the 
line  of  /2o/z'cz/,  in  exhibiting  the  picture  of  this  party,  as  it  is. 
The  inevitable  effect  of  this  picture  is  to  excite  aversion,  scorn, 
and  terrour :  the  fault  of  rousing  these  unpleasant  emotions, 
in  all  their  strength,  is  not  in  the  painter,  it  is  in  the  subject. 
Let  the  soft  seekers  of  popularity  dream  of  soothing  parties 
into  moderation.  When  they  see  a  faction  devoted  to  our 
foreign  enemy,  putting  their  all  in  jeopardy,  let  them  counsel 
us  again,  as  they  have  often  done  before,  to  bestow  upon  the 
factious  all  our  charity,  and  more  than  half  our  esteem,  and. 
upon  the  government  that  is  struggling  to  preserve  us,  all  our 
jealousy,  and  as  much  of  our  support  as  we  can  afford  it  with* 
14 


106  LAOCOOX. 

out  making  enemies.  Let  them  compose  new  homilies  for 
hypocrisy,  to  inculcate  upon  citizens  brotherly  love  towards 
amiable,  patriotick  traitors,  and  upon  government  forbearance 
to  make  or  execute  laws  against  inoffensive  conspiracies.  But 
let  such  discourses  issue  only  from  the  Chronicle.  Let  all 
but  its  readers  and  patrons  abstain  from  censuring  the  asperity, 
with  which  the  jacobins,  as  a  party,  are  treated.  The  scorn 
that  is  poured  upon  them  is  the  greatest  obstacle  they  encoun 
ter  in  their  more  than  Jesuit  labours  of  making  converts  to 
jacobinism  ;  and  the  dread  and  abhorrence,  in  which  the  party 
and  their  schemes  are  held,  is  the  chief  auxiliary  of  good 
government  in  preventing  their  success.  It  is  the  squeamish- 
ness,  the  trimming,  ha}f-way,  selfish  spirit  of  too  many  federal 
ists  that  keeps  the  faction  encouraged  to  prosecute  its  pestilent 
designs.  The  British  nation  is  now  united  as  one  man,  and 
the  force  of  publick  opinion  is  combined,  the  voice  of  the 
real  nation  is  heard,  and  faction  is  of  consequence  in  the  mire 
of  contempt.  Till  our  spirit  is  in  like  manner  roused,  all 
things  will  seem  to  be  possible  to  party,  and  therefore  all  evil 
things  will  be  attempted.  If  we  allow  ourselves  to  hope  any 
respite  from  the  assaults  of  the  French  faction,  it  is  by  animat 
ing  the  zeal  of  the  friends  of  virtue  and  government,  and 
persuading  them  to  come  forth  and  to  speak  out,  and  thus 
we  shall  discourage  and  disarm  the  factious :  their  affected 
moderation  must  not  rob  the  cause  of  half  its  support.  It  is 
indeed  evident,  that  the  spirit  of  the  friends  of  order  is  at  all 
times  weak,  excepting  only  when  the  danger  is  so  near  and 
obvious  as  to  rouse  an  universal  alarm  and  a  common  exertion. 
A  correct  view  of  the  character  of  jacobinism,  if  once  clearly 
taken  and  profoundly  impressed  upon  the  publick,  would  keep 
those  well  grounded  apprehensions  constantly  awake,  which  in 
effect  are  the  guardians  of  our  political  safety. 

I  WILL  not  therefore  admit,  that  the  task  of  delineating  the 
true  character  of  the  deluded  mass  of  the  jacobins  is  unneces 
sary,  or  that  by  adhering  to  truth  there  will  be  a  deviation  from 
urbanity  and  candour.  I  will  raise  my  feeble  voice  to  expose 


LAOCOON.  107 

the  frailty  of  those  hopes,  which  too  many  repose  on  the  honesty 
of  the  factious,  and  which  incline  them  to  behold  the  despera 
tion  of  their  measures  without  much  iear,  because  they  trust 
that  the  individuals  of  the  party  will  flinch  as  soon  as  things 
approach  towards  extremities.  This  trust  is  a  vain  one.  I 
am  as  ready  as  others  to  make  excuses  for  the  deluded  of  all 
parties.  Of  all  the  causes  of  seduction  from  virtue,  perhaps, 
none  is  so  powerful  as  the  fellowship  of  party.  But  what 
then  ?  Are  we  still  to  maintain  that  party  men  are  honest,  when 
they  have  been  long  exposed  to  an  influence,  which  we  know  is 
almost  irresistibly  corrupting  ?  We  may,  and  we  ought,  on  this 
account,  the  more  deeply  to  deplore  the  ravages  of  the  spirit 
of  faction  upon  morals  and  the  sentiments  of  humanity.  We 
are  not,  however,  to  deny  the  fact,  and  insist  upon  reposing 
our  confidence  in  the  correct  moral  discernment  of  men, 
whom  we  know  to  be  deluded,  nor  in  the  restraints  of  shame 
and  principle  upon  those  minds,  which  have  already  overcome 
the  shame  of  their  principles  and  their  associates.  We  may 
be  sure,  that  more  than  half  the  utmost  corrupting  work  of 
political  vice  is  already  done,  and  that  the  reputed  honest  men 
of  the  faction  have  either  renounced  their  old  principles,  or 
dismissed  them  as  the  guides  of  their  conduct.  It  is  a  cruel 
mercy,  that  would  spare  the  party,  because  some  of  the  indi 
viduals  mean  well.  The  plain  truth  should  be  told ;  it  may 
alarm  a  few,  and  save  them  from  being  traitors. 

SOME  labour  to  exhibit  a  brief  analysis  will  be  proper,  as  it 
will  tend  to  excite  federalists  to  a  sense  of  their  actual  danger, 
and  disarm  the  host  of  trimmers  and  political  hypocrites  of  a 
topick  which  they  never  fail  to  urge  upon  our  politeness  and 
good  nature,  whenever  they  would  abate  the  scorn  that  is 
thrown  upon  one  party,  or  quench  the  sparks  of  that  zeal  which 
is  too  rarely  excited  in  the  other. 

SUPPOSING  the  honest  among  the  jacobins  to  possess  the 
ordinary  degrees  of  self-knowledge,  on  looking  inward  they 
will  find  there  a  consciousness  of  some  moral  principle,  of 
some  integrity  of  heart.  This  will  make  them  less  distrustful 


108  LAOCOOX, 

of  themselves,  less  apprehensive  of  the  reproaches  of  others  ; 
and  having  adopted  erroneous  political  maxims,  they  will 
pursue  their  dark  mazes  with  a  fearless  step.  The  ill  conse 
quences,  though  natural,  not  being  foreseen,  will  seem  to 
proceed  from  accident,  and  only  stimulate  their  perseverance, 
or  to  be  owing  to  the  malice  of  the  concealed  aristocrats,  and 
inflame  with  a  ten-fold  heat  the  rancour  of  their  hostility. 
What  was  errour  becomes  passion.  The  honest  man  thinks, 
that  he  is  summoned  to  the  combat :  the  casuistry  of  a  jaco 
bin  conscience  spreads  a  mist  before  his  eyes,  which  he  thinks 
renders  him  invisible ;  obstinacy  cases  him  in  mail ;  French 
humanity  puts  a  dagger  into  one  hand,  and  party  zeal,  calling 
itself  patriotism,  a  fire  brand  into  the  other.  Thus  the  honest 
jacobin,  equally  misled  by  what  he  knows,  and  by  the  nature 
of  his  own  principles  and  their  tendencies,  goes  forth  to  assist 
knaves  in  what  he  deems  the  cause  of  virtue.  He  has  so 
many  excuses  in  the  good  motives,  which  he  is  sure  he  does 
feel,  and  in  the  happy  consequences,  which  lie  thinks  he  cer 
tainly  does  foresee,  that  he  makes  haste  to  spread  ruin  without 
compunction,  and  to  perpetrate  crimes  without  remorse.  Every 
intelligent  politician  knows,  that,  in  all  party  affairs,  the  un 
thinking  dupes  and  honest  fools  are  the  rashest.  The  crimes 
they  can  excuse,  and  even  persuade  themselves  to  call  virtues, 
they  do  not  blush  to  commit.  They  are  not  afraid  of  shame, 
because  they  adopt  the  creed  of  their  teachers,  and  glory  in  it. 
They  dance  on  the  edge  of  a  precipice,  and  think  it  a  firm 
plain  all  round  their  feet.  They  foresee  but  little,  and  dread 
little  of  what  they  foresee.  Little  deterred  by  unforeseen 
danger,  and  strongly  allured  by  imaginary  good,  that  will  be 
the  sure  reward  of  their  patriot  labours,  if  successful,  the  duty 
to  struggle  for  that  success  appears  to  be  superiour  to  every 
other.  The  best  institutions,  the  great  safeguards  of  order, 
seem  to  them  abuses :  government  is  an  obstacle,  and  must  be 
removed  ;  magistrates  are  enemies,  and  must  be  conquered. 
They  at  last  make  conscience  of  committing  the  most  shock 
ing  atrocities,  and  learn  to  throw  their  eyes  beyond  the  gulph 


LAOCOON.  109 

of  revolution,  confusion,  and  civil  war,  which  yawns  at  their 
feet,  to  behold  an  Eden  of  primitive  innocence,  equality,  and 
liberty  in  blossom  on  the  other  side.  There  these  tigers  of 
revolution,  their  leaders,  are  to  lie  down  with  the  lamb-like 
multitude,  sometimes  suffering  hunger,  yet  forbearing  to  eat 
them.  The  rights  of  man  are  to  be  established  by  being 
solemnly  proclaimed,  and  printed,  so  that  every  citizen  shall 
have  a  copy.  Avarice,  ambition,  revenge,  and  rage  will  be 
disenchanted  from  all  hearts,  and  die  there  ;  man  will  be  re 
generated ;  by  slaying  half  a  million  only  once,  four  millions 
will  be  born  twice,  and  the  glorious  work  of  that  perfectibility 
of  the  species,  foretold  by  Condorcet  and  the  Mazzei  sect  in 
America,  will  begin. 

THE  knaves,  however,  who  lead  this  infatuated  honest  multi 
tude,  indulge  no  such  extravagant  delusions.  They  have  no 
faith  in  this  splendid  hereafter,  this  happy  future  state  for 
jacobins  in  this  world.  They  have  as  little  taste  for  it.  They 
propose  other  rewards  for  their  patriotick  virtue,  than  this 
heaven  of  metaphysicks  has  laid  up  for  them.  Turning  to  their 
own  base  hearts,  they  shrink  from,  themselves,  and  are  more 
likely  to  feel  remorse,  than  their  honest  disciples  ;  they  are 
conscious,  that  they  ought  to  be  suspected,  and  they  act  with 
the  caution  that  this  consciousness  inevitably  inspires ;  their 
dupes  act  with  a  fervour,  and  rage,  and  thirst  for  innovation, 
which  render  the  prospects  of  all  possible  confusion  insufficient 
to  satisfy  them.  The  cold  thinking  villains  who  lead,  "  whose 
"  black  blood  runs  temperately  bad,"  desire  on  the  contrary  no 
more  confusion  than  just  enough  to  answer  their  own  ends : 
their  ambition  would  naturally  desire  to  preserve  the  powers 
of  government  to  usurp  them,  and  their  rapacity  would  spare 
the  wealth  of  the  state  to  plunder  it.  A  fresh  set  would 
indeed  succeed,  as  in  France,  and  rob  the  first  despoilers,  till 
the  state,  successively  a  prey,  would  be  reduced  to  beggary 
and  ruin.  It  is  seldom  that  the  leaders  of  revolutions  have 
much  profited  by  them ;  and  this  shews  the  shortsightedness 
even  of  their  policy,  and  that,  as  it  relates  to  their  own  personal 


no  LAonoox. 

advantage,  they  are  nearly  as  much  deluded  as  their  dupes/ 
But  the  possession  of  the  sovereign  power,  however  precarious, 
is  too  great  a  temptation  for  their  prudence  to  withstand. 
Accordingly  we  see,  that  for  such  a  prize  competitors  are 
never  wanting  ;  and  they  struggle  for  the  imperial  purple  with 
as  much  ardour  and  fierceness,  as  if  it  were  not  wet  and  drop 
ping  with  the  blood  of x  its  last  usurper.  Robespierre's  fall 
incited  more  pretenders  than  it  intimidated. 

IT  will  be  objected,  that  this  open  avowal  of  contempt  and 
detestation  of 'the  jacobins,  and  this  unreserved  exhortation  to 
all  friends  of  government  to  inculcate  these  sentiments,  can 
only  exasperate  party  animosities  and  augment  their  mutual 
virulence.  I  ask  in  reply,  would  my  silence,  or  the  most  sooth 
ing  style  of  address  I  could  choose,  prevent  or  compose  these 
animosities  ?  Is  it  in  the  nature  of  free  governments  to  exist 
without  parties  ?  Such  a  thing  has  never  yet  been  and  probably 
never  will  be.  Is  it  in  the  nature  of  party  to  exist  without 
passion  ?  or  of  passion  to  acquiesce,  when  it  meets  with  opposers 
and  obstacles  ?  Is  it  owing,  do-the  vapid  declaimers  really  think 
in  good  faith,  to  the  intemperance  or  indiscretion  of  federal 
writers,  that  jacobins  are  restless  and  malignant  ?  or  that,  by 
changing  epithets  or  lavishing  lying  praises  on  their  honesty, 
they  would  change  their  nature  and  renounce  their  designs  ? 
No,  it  is  absurd  to  expect  faction  cold  in  the  pursuit  of  great 
objects,  reasonable  in  selecting  means  for  gratifying  inordinate 
designs,  retarded  by  moral  doubts  and  perplexities,  when 
led  by  philosophers,  soft  to  persuade,  when  it  is  callous  to 
pity,  and  fearless  of  consequences.  Party  moderation  is  chil 
dren's  talk.  Who  has  ever  seen  faction  calmly  in  a  rage  ? 
Who  will  expect  to  see  that  carnivorous  monster  quietly  sub 
mit  to  eat  grass  ? 

THE  criticks  on  this  performance  may  be  assured,  there 
fore,  that,  if  no  good  is  done  by  it,  it  will  not  do  the  mischief 
they  apprehend.  Parties  will  hate  each  other  a  little  less  for 
mutual  plain  dealing  and  freedom  of  speech ;  for  they  never 


LAOCOOtf.  Ill 

hate  with  more  inveteracy  than  when  they  condescend  to  sooth 
and  to  flatter. 

THERE  are  some  who  will  admit,  that  the  spirit  of  party  is 
virulent,  and  its  principle  and  designs  utterly  profligate,  who 
will  nevertheless  scruple  to  say,  that  the  present  state  of  affairs 
is  such  as  to  demand  an  alarming  appeal  to  the  patriotism  of 
the  citizens.  France,  our  dangerous  foe,  they  will  tell  us,  is 
baffled  and  detected  in  her  arts,  and  deprived  by  the  victories  of 
the  English  navy  of  her  arms  ;  that  all  fear  of  invasion  may  be 
dismissed  ;  and  even  if  a  few  thousand  negroes  should  be 
landed  from  Guadaloupe,  the  citizens  would  rally  round  the 
standard  of  lawful  government,  and  crush  the  invaders  ;  that 
the  rebellion  in  Pennsylvania  is  feeble  in  force,  and  cowardly  in 
spirit ;  that  the  government  never  before  had  such  power  of 
arms,  of  credit,  of  treasure,  and  what  is  more  than  arms  and 
treasure,  of  duty  and  affection  in  the  hearts  of  all  good  citizens  ; 
that  it  appears  the  fairer,  for  having  been  falsely  accused  ;  that 
its  friends  have  more  zeal  and  confidence  than  ever,  and  the 
jacobins  now  feel  their  own  weakness,  and  know,  that  they  can 
depend  little  on  themselves,  and  none  at  all  on  France.  This 
is,  therefore,  they  will  insist,  a  time  for  exultation,  not  of  alarm  ; 
a  time  tranquilly  to  enjoy  the  blessings  of  our  free  constitution, 
not  to  suffer  anxiety,  and  to  mount  guard,  as  heretofore,  for  its 
defence.  These  are  pleasing  illusions,  but  they  are  illusions. 

WHEN  we  look  at  Europe,  and  contemplate  its  political 
state,  we  seem  to  be  treading  on  the  crater  of  a  half-extinguished 
volcano.  Here,  scarcely  cool  from  their  fusion,  are  the  cin 
ders  of  one  republick,  and  there  still  smoke  the  brands  of 
another.  On  this  side  see  a  little  Italian  state  beginning  to 
belch  revolutionary  fires  ;  on  that  another  lies  like  a  little 
mount  on  the  great  French  volcano,  a  jumbled  mass  of  lava 
and  ruins.  Can  we  think  there  is  a  decree  for  the  immortal 
ity  of  our  republick,  when  every  gazette  from  Europe  is  black 
ened  with  the  epitaphs  of  nations  once  independent,  now  no 
more.  Lately  they  had  life  and  being ;  now  they  lie  like  little 
mangled  birds  to  digest  in  the  French  tiger's  maw.  One 


112  LAOCOOXi 

nation  alone  resists  these  new  Romans,  and  prevents  the  estab 
lishment  of  a  universal  domination,  and  a  despotism  over  the 
whole  civilized  world.  Surely,  if  we  contemplate  only  external 
danger,  this  is  no  time  for  security  and  presumptuous  confi 
dence.  That  single  nation,  though  magnanimous,  though  pow 
erful  in  wealth  as  wrell  as  spirit,  may  grow  weary  of  standing 
in  the  gap,  or,  possibly,  may  imitate  the  wretched  policy  of  the 
emperour,  and,  in  compensation  for  a  respite  to  the  strong  foes 
of  France,  may  permit  her  to  finish  the  conquest  of  her  weak 
ones.  The  power  of  France,  though  checked  at  sea,  is  still 
gigantick,  far  exceeding  that  of  the  Roman  empire  in  the  days 
of  Trajan  ;  and,  before  the  end  of  the  year,  she  will  probably 
incorporate  all  Italy,  Spain,  and  Portugal,  with  her  vast  terri 
tory,  which  takes  the  Rhine  for  a  boundary,  and  includes  Hol 
land.  It  is  more  than  a  thousand  years,  since  the  world  has 
seen  a  power  any  thing  near  so  overwhelming  and  terrifick  as 
that  of  France.  Dreadful  as  her  force  is,  her  arts  are  still  more 
dreadful,  and  here  our  danger  lies. 

A  FACTION,  whose  union  is  perfect,  whose  spirit  is  des 
perate,  addressing  something  persuasive  to  every  prejudice, 
putting  something  combustible  to  every  passion,  granting 
some  indulgence  to  every  vice,  promising  those  who  dread  the 
law  to  set  them  above  it,  to  the  mean  whispering  suspicion, 
to  the  ambitious  offering  power,  to  the  rapacious,  plunder,  to 
the  violent,  revenge,  to  the  envious,  the  abasement  of  all  that 
is  venerable,  to  innovators,  the  transmutation  of  ail  that  is 
established,  grouping  together  all  that  is  folly,  vice,  and  pas 
sion  in  the  state,  and  forming  of  these  vile  materials  another 
state,  an  imfierium  in  imjierio — Behold  this  is  our  condition, 
these  pur  terrours.  And  \vhat  are  the  resources  for  our  safety  I 

THEY  all  exist  in  the  energy  and  correctness  of  the  publick 
opinion.  A  thousand  proofs  exist,  but  the  fact  is  so  notorious 
it  is  needless  to  vouch  them,  to  show,  that  our  government  has 
been,  and  is  supported  only  by  the  appeal  to  the  virtue,  zeal, 
and  patriotism  of  the  body  of  the  citizens.  Genet  assumed 
upon  himself  the  powers  of  a  sovereign,  and  exercised  them 


LAOCOON.  113 

too,  till  the  government  cried  out  for  help  to  the  people,  and 
they  came  to  help  in  season.  The  treaty  contest  stopped  the 
wheels  of  government  for  a  time  ;  and  the  effective  sovereignty 
was  first  actually  assumed  and  exercised  by  the  town  meetings, 
and  then  divided  between  the  executive  and  senate  on  one  side, 
who  adhered  to  the  treaty,  and  the  house  who  shewed  a  dispo 
sition  to  annul  it.  This  was  an  instance  of  the  government 
being  near  its  death,  by  the  benumbing  stroke  of  a  factious 
apoplexy,  without  a  resort  to  arms,  without  taking  the  sense 
of  the  people.  But  again  in  that  case,  the  real  people  took 
the  alarm,  and  saved  the  country  from  the  terrible  convulsions, 
which  never  fail  to  ensue,  when  the  political  house  is  divided 
against  itself.  With  less  intelligence  of  the  citizens,  or  a  fort 
night's  less  speed  in  rallying,  all  would  then  have  been  lost. 

WHEN  the  instances  are  so  recent,  that  the  pulse  of  alarm 
has  scarcely  yet  ceased  to  flutter,  will  any  man  of  common  sense 
pretend  to  say,  that  our  government  stands  unshaken  upon  a 
foundation  of  rock  ?  that  the  sounds  of  alarm  are  counterfeit 
or  imaginary  ?  that  faction  is  impotent  and  contemptible  ? 

No  nation  can  rely  on  the  sufficiently  clear  and  early  political 
discernment  of  its  citizens,  to  discover  and  repel  the  danger  to 
its  liberty  and  independence  :  they  may  discover  their  danger 
too  late,  as  all  the  people  of  the  fallen  European  states  did : 
they  may  mistake  too,  and  think,  as  the  Swiss  did,  that  it  is. 
safer  to  trust  the  foe  than  to  resist  him.  Opinion  is  every 
where  fickle,  and  our  political  situation  is  awkward  and  unpre 
cedented  ;  hard  now  to  change,  impossible  to  maintain  a  strange 
middle  state,  not  easy  to  be  understood  or  approver!.  It  is 
peace  without  tranquillity  ;  it  is  war  without  action  :  it  is  peace, 
yet  it  is  dangerous ;  it  is  war,  yet  it  deadens  all  the  fervours 
of  patriotism,  all  the  energies  of  valour :  it  is  peace  so  far  only, 
as  to  lay  our  bosoms  bare  to  the  poisoned  darts  of  our  foe, 
and  to  the  hostility  of  his  ally,  our  intestine  faction  ;  it  is  war 
to  every  extent,  that  can  expose  us  to  alarm,  to  depredation, 
and  to  expense.  Such  a  state  cannot  be  maintained  longer 
than  just  to  afford  to  the  nation  some  few  months  to  decide 
which  they  will  prefer,  a  foreign  or  a  civil  war. 
15 


114  LAOOOON": 

THE  malady  of  a  foreign  faction  has  grown  inveterate  by- 
time  and  by  palliatives ;  it  has  burrowed  deep  in  the  flesh,  and 
mingled  a  corrosive  lymph  with  the  marrow  of  the  bones. 
Every  common  observer  may  be  sure  it  is  approaching  a  vio 
lent  crisis.  The  jacobins  have  been  every  where  in  movement, 
preparing  eveiy  engine  of  power  and  influence,  to  transfer  the 
countiy,  its  liberty,  and  property,  at  the  next  election  of  presi 
dent  and  vice-president,  into  the  hands  of  men  equally  destitute 
of  private  virtue  and  of  publick  spirit. 

AT  this  day,  so  fatal  to  the  independence  of  free  states, 
the  sound  of  alarm  ought  not  to  surprise,  it  should  animate. 
Republican  liberty  is  held  by  the  tenure  of  continuing  worthy 
to  hold  it :  we  have  to  choose  between  the  burden  of  its 
duties  and  its  destiny.  It  has  ever  been  deemed  the  Hespe 
rian  fruit,  but  since  the  days  of  fable  it  was  never  yet  guarded 
by  dragons.  Why  then  will  any  one  reprove  the  writer  for 
attempting  to  rouse  the  vigilance  of  the  citizens  ?  It  is  for 
them  as  a  body,  and  individually,  to  form  a  lifeguard  to  pro 
tect  it  from  assassination. 


[     115 


EULOGY  ON  WASHINGTON. 

DELIVERED,  AT   THE  REQUEST   OF   THE    LEGISLATURE  OP  MASSA 
CHUSETTS,  FEB.  8,1800. 

AT  is  natural  that  the  gratitude  of  mankind  should  be  drawn 
to  their  benefactors.  A  number  of  these  have  successively 
arisen,  who  were  no  less  distinguished  for  the  elevation  of 
their  virtues,  than  the  lustre  of  their  talents.  Of  those,  how 
ever,  who  were  born,  and  who  acted,  through  life,  as  if  they 
were  born,  not  for  themselves,  but  for  their  country  and 
the  whole  human  race,  how  few,  alas  1  are  recorded  in  the 
long  annals  of  ages,  and  how  wide  the  intervals  of  time  and 
space  that  divide  them.  In  all  this  dreary  length  of  way,  they 
appear  like  five  or  six  light  houses  on  as  many  thousand  miles 
of  coast:  they  gleam  upon  the  surrounding  darkness,  with  an 
inextinguishable  splendour,  like  stars  seen  through  a  mist; 
but  they  are  seen  like  stars,  to  cheer,  to  guide,  and  to  save. 
WASHINGTON  is  now  added  to  that  small  number.  Already 
he  attracts  curiosity,  like  a  newly  discovered  star,  whose 
benignant  light  will  travel  on  to  the  world's  and  time's  farthest 
bounds.  Already  his  name  is  hung  up  by  history  as  con 
spicuously,  as  if  it  sparkled  in  one  of  the  constellations  of  the 
sky. 

BY  commemorating  his  death,  we  are  called  this  day  to 
yield  the  homage  that  is  due  to  virtue ;  to  confess  the  com 
mon  debt  of  mankind  as  well  as  our  own ;  and  to  pronounce 
for  posterity,  now  dumb,  that  elogium,  which  they  will  delight 
to  echo  ten  ages  hence,  when  we  are  dumb. 

I  CONSIDER  myself  not  merely  in  the  midst  of  the  citizens 
of  this  town,  or  even  of  the  state  In  idea,  I  gather  round  me 
the  nation.  In  the  vast  and  venerable  congregation  of  the 
patriots  of  all  countries  and  of  all  enlightened  men,  I  would, 
if  I  could,  raise  my  voice,  and  speak  to  mankind  in  a  strain 


116  E'ULOGY  ON 

worthy  of  my  audience,  and  as  elevated  as  my  subject.  But 
you  have  assigned  me  a  task  that  is  impossible. 

O  IF  I  could  perform  it,  if  I  could  illustrate  his  principles 
in  my  discourse  as  he  displayed  them  in  his  life,  if  I  could 
paint  his  virtues  as  he  practised  them,  if  I  could  convert  the 
fervid  enthusiasm  of  my  heart  into  the  talent  to  transmit  his 
fame,  as  it  ought  to  pass,  to  posterity,  I  should  be  the  success 
ful  organ  of  your  will,  the  minister  of  his  virtues,  and  may  I 
dare  to  say,  the  humble  partaker  of  his  immortal  glory.  These 
are  ambitious,  deceiving  hopes,  and  I  reject  them ;  for  it  is, 
perhaps,  almost  as  difficult,  at  once  with  judgment  and  feeling, 
to  praise  great  aciions,  as  to  perform  them.  A  lavish  and 
undistinguishing  elogium  is  not  praise ;  and  to  discriminate 
such  excellent  qualities  as  were  characteristick  and  peculiar 
to  him,  would  be  to  raise  a  name,  as  he  raised  it,  above  envy, 
above  parallel,  perhaps,  for  that  very  reason,  above  emulation. 

SUCH  a  portraying  of  character,  however,  must  be  address 
ed  to  the  understanding,  and,  therefore,  even  if  it  were  well 
executed,  would  seem  to  be  rather  an  analysis  of  moral  prin 
ciples,  than  the  recital  of  a  hero's  exploits. 

WITH  whatever  fidelity  I  might  execute  this  task,  I  know 
that  some  would  prefer  a  picture  drawn  to  the  imagination. 
They  would  have  our  WASHINGTON  represented  of  a  giant's 
size,  and  in  the  character  of  a  hero  of  romance.  They  who 
love  to  wonder  better  than  to  reason,  would  not  be  satisfied 
with  the  contemplation  of  a  great  example,  unless,  in  thr 
exhibition,  it  should  be  so  distorted  into  prodigy,  as  to  be  both 
incredible  and  useless.  Others,  I  hope  but  few,  who  think 
meanly  of  human  nature,  will  deem  it  incredible,  that  even 
WASHINGTON  should  think  with  as  much  dignity  and  elevation 
as  he  acted ;  and  they  will  grovel  in  vain  in  the  search  for 
mean  and  selfish  motives,  that  could  incite  and  sustain  him  to 
devote  his  life  to  his  country. 

Do  not  these  suggestions  sound  in  your  ears  like  a  profana 
tion  of  virtue  ?  and,  while  I  pronounce  them,  do  you  not  fee,! 
a  thrill  of  indignation  at  your  hearts  ?  Forbear.  Time  never 
fails  to  bring  every  exalted  reputation  to  a  strict  scrutiny :  the 


WASHINGTON.  117 

world,  in  passing  the  judgment  that  is  never  to  be  reversed, 
will  deny  all  partiality  even  to  the  name  of  WASHINGTON. 
Let  it  be  denied,  for  its  justice  will  confer  glory. 

SUCH  a  life  as  WASHINGTON'S  cannot  derive  honour  from 
the  circumstances  of  birth  and  education,  though  it  throws 
back  a  lustre  upon  both.  With  an  inquisitive  mind,  that 
always  profited  by  the  lights  of  others,  and  was  unclouded  by 
passions  of  its  own,  he  acquired  a  maturity  of  judgment,  rare 
in  age,  unparalleled  in  youth.  Perhaps  no  young  man  had 
so  early  laid  up  a  life's  stock  of  materials  for  solid  reflection, 
or  settled  so  soon  the  principles  and  habits  of  his  conduct. 
Gray  experience  listened  to  his  counsels  with  respect,  and,  at 
a  time  when  youth  is  almost  privileged  to  be  rash,  Virginia 
committed  the  safety  of  her  frontier,  and,  ultimately,  the  safety 
of  America,  not  merely  to  his  valour,  for  that  would  be  scarcely 
praise,  but  to  his  prudence. 

IT  is  not  in  Indian  wars  that  heroes  are  celebrated ;  but  it 
is  there  they  are  formed.  No  enemy  can  be  more  formidable, 
by  the  craft  of  his  ambushes,  the  suddenness  of  his  onset,  or 
the  ferocity  of  his  vengeance.  The  soul  of  WASHINGTON  was 
thus  exercised  to  danger ;  and,  on  the  first  trial,  as  on  every 
other,  it  appeared  firm  in  adversity,  cool  in  action,  undaunted, 
self-possessed.  His  spirit,  and  still  more  his  prudence,  on  the 
occasion  of  Braddock's  defeat,  diffused  his  name  throughout 
America,  and  across  the  Atlantick.  Even  then  his  country 
viewed  him  with  complacency,  as  her  most  hopeful  son. 

AT  the  peace  of  1763,  Great  Britain,  in  consequence  of  her 
victories,  stood  in  a  position  to  prescribe  her  own  terms.  She 
chose,  perhaps,  better  for  us  than  for  herself:  for  by  expelling 
the  French  from  Canada,  we  no  longer  feared  hostile  neigh 
bours  ;  and  we  soon  found  just  cause  to  be  afraid  of  our  pro 
tectors.  We  discerned,  even  then,  a  truth,  which  the  conduct 
of  France  has  since  so  strongly  confirmed,  that  there  is  nothing 
which  the  gratitude  of  weak  states  can  give,  that  will  satisfy 
strong  allies  for  their  aid,  but  authority :  nations  that  want 
protectors,  will  have  masters.  Our  settlements,  no  longer 
checked  by  enemies  on  the  frontier,  rapidly  increased ;  and  it 


118  EULOGY  ON 

was  discovered,  that  America  was  growing  to  a  size  that  could 
defend  itself. 

IN  this,  perhaps  unforeseen,  but  at  length  obvious  state  of 
things,  the  British  government  conceived  a  jealousy  of  the 
colonies,  of  which,  and  of  their  intended  measures  of  precau-. 
tion,  they  made  no  secret. 

OUR  nation,  like  its  great  leader,  had  only  to  take  counsel 
from  its  courage.  When  WASHINGTON  heard  the  voice  of 
his  country  in  distress,  his  obedience  was  prompt ;  and  though 
his  sacrifices  were  great,  they  cost  him  no  effort.  Neither 
the  object,  nor  the  limits  of  my  plan,  permit  me  to  dilate  on 
the  military  events  of  the  revolutionary  war.  Our  history  is 
but  a  transcript  of  his  claims  on  our  gratitude :  our  hearts 
bear  testimony,  that  they  are  claims  not  to  be  satisfied.  When 
overmatched  by  numbers,  a  fugitive  with  a  little  band  of 
faithful  soldiers,  the  states  as  much  exhausted  as  dismayed, 
he  explored  his  own  undaunted  heart,  and  found  there  re 
sources  to  retrieve  our  affairs.  We  have  seen  him  display  as 
much  valour  as  gives  fame  to  heroes,  and  as  consummate  pru 
dence  as  ensures  success  to  valour ;  fearless  of  dangers  that 
were  personal  to  him,  hesitating  and  cautious,  when  they 
affected  his  country ;  preferring  fame  before  safety  or  repose, 
and  duty  before  fame. 

ROME  did  not  owe  more  to  Fabius,  than  America  to  WASH 
INGTON.  Our  nation  shapes  with  him  the  singular  glory  of 
having  conducted  a  civil  war  with  mildness,  and  a  revolution 
with  order. 

THE  event  of  that  war  seemed  to  crown  the  felicity  and 
glory  both  of  America  and  its  chief.  Until  that  contest,  a 
great  part  of  the  civilized  world  had  been  surprisingly  igno 
rant  of  the  force  and  character,  and  almost  of  the  existence, 
of  the  British  colonies.  They  had  not  retained  what  they 
knew,  nor  felt  curiosity  to  know  the  state  of  thirteen  wretched 
settlements,  which  vast  woods  enclosed,  and  still  vaster  woods 
divided  from  each  other.  They  did  not  view  the  colonists  so 
much  a  people,  as  a  race  of  fugitives,  whom  want,  and  soli 
tude,  and  intermixture  with,  the  savages,  had  made  barbarians. 


WASHINGTON.  119 

AT  this  time,  while  Great  Britain  wielded  a  force  truly 
formidable  to  the  most  powerful  states,  suddenly,  astonished 
Europe  beheld  a  feeble  people,  till  then  unknown,  stand  forth, 
and  defy  this  giant  to  the  combat.  It  was  so  unequal,  all 
expected  it  would  be  short.  Our  final  success  exalted  their 
admiration  to  its  highest  point :  they  allowed  to  WASHINGTON 
all  that  is  due  to  transcendent  virtue,  and  to  the  Americans 
more  than  is  due  to  human  nature.  They  considered  us  a 
race  of  WASHINGTONS,  and  admitted  that  nature  in  America 
was  fruitful  only  in  prodigies.  Their  books  and  their  travel 
lers,  exaggerating  and  distorting  all  their  representations,  as 
sisted  to  establish  the  opinion,  that  this  is  a  new  world,  with 
a  new  order  of  men  and  things  adapted  to  it ;  that  here  we 
practise  industry,  amidst  the  abundance  that  requires  none ; 
that  we  have  morals  so  refined,  that  we  do  not  need  laws  ;  and 
though  we  have  them,  yet  we  ought  to  consider  their  execu 
tion  as  an  insult  and  a  wrong ;  that  we  have  virtue  without 
weaknesses,  sentiment  without  passions,  and  liberty  without 
factions.  These  illusions,  in  spite  of  their  absurdity,  and,  per 
haps,  because  they  are  absurd  enough  to  have  dominion  over 
the  imagination  only,  have  been  received  by  many  of  the  male- 
contents  against  the  governments  of  Europe,  and  induced  them 
to  emigrate.  Such  illusions  are  too  soothing  to  vanity  to  be 
entirely  checked  in  their  currency  among  Americans. 

THEY  have  been  pernicious,  as  they  cherish  false  ideas  of 
the  rights  of  men  and  the  duties  of  rulers.  They  have  led  the 
citizens  to  look  for  liberty,  where  it  is  not ;  and  to  consider 
the  government,  which  is  its  castle,  as  its  prison. 

WASHINGTON  retired  to  Mount  Vernon,  and  the  eyes  of  the 
world  followed  him.  He  left  his  countrymen  to  their  simpli 
city  and  their  passions,  and  their  glory  soon  departed.  Europe 
began  to  be  undeceived,  and  it  seemed,  for  a  time,  as  if,  by  the 
acquisition  of  independence,  our  citizens  were  disappointed. 
The  confederation  was  then  the  only  compact  made  "  to  form 
"  a  perfect  union  of  the  states,  to  establish  justice,  to  ensure  the 
"  tranquillity,  and  provide  for  the  security,  of  the  nation  ;"  and* 
accordingly,  union  was  a  name  that  still  commanded  reverence, 


J20  EULOGY  ON 

though  not  obedience.  The  system  called  justice  was,  iii 
some  of  the  states,  iniquity  reduced  to  elementary  principles  ; 
and  the  publick  tranquillity  was  such  a  portentous  calm,  as 
rings  in  deep  caverns  before  the  explosion  of  an  earthquake* 
Most  of  the  states  then  were  in  fact,  though  not  in  form, 
unbalanced  democracies.  Reason,  it  is  true,  spoke  audibly  in 
their  constitutions  ;  passion  and  prejudice  louder  in  their  laws. 
It  is  to  the  honour  of  Massachusetts,  that  it  is  chargeable  with 
little  deviation  from  principles  :  its  adherence  to  them  was 
one  of  the  causes  of  a  dangerous  rebellion.  It  was  scarcely 
possible  that  such  governments  should  not  be  agitated  by  par- 
tics,  and  that  prevailing  parties  should  not  be  vindictive  and 
unjust.  Accordingly,  in  some  of  the  states,  creditors  were  treat* 
ed  as  outlaws ;  bankrupts  were  armed  with  legal  authority  to  be 
persecutors  ;  and,  by  the  shock  of  all  confidence  and  faith, 
society  was  shaken  to  its  foundations.  Liberty  we  had,  but  we 
dreaded  its  abuse  almost  as  much  as  its  loss  ;  and  the  wise,  who 
deplored  the  one,  clearly  foresaw  the  other. 

TH-E  peace  of  America  hung  by  a  thread,  and  factions  were 
already  sharpening  their  weapons  to  cut  it.  The  project  of 
three  separate  empires  in  America  was  beginning  to  be  broach 
ed,  and  the  progress  of  licentiousness  would  have  soon  render 
ed  her  citizens  unfit  for  liberty  in  either  of  them.  An  age  of 
blood  and  misery  would  have  punished  our  disunion  :  but  these 
were  not  the  considerations  to  deter  ambition  from  its  purpose, 
while  there  were  so  many  circumstances  in  our  political  situa 
tion  to  favour  it. 

AT  this  awful  crisis,  which  all  the  wise  so  much  dreaded  at 
the  time,  yet  which  appears,  on  a  retrospect,  so  much  more 
dreadful  than  their  fears  ;  some  man  was  wanting  who  possess 
ed  a  commanding  power  over  the  popular  passions,  but  over 
whom  those  passions  had  no  power.  That  man  was  WASH 
INGTON. 

His  name,  at  the  head  of  such  a  list  of  worthies  as  would 
reilect  honour  on  any  country,  had  its  proper  weight  with  all 
the  enlightened,  and  with  almost  all  the  well  disposed  among 
the  less  informed  citizens,  and,  blessed  be  God  !  the  constitu* 


WASHINGTON.  121 

lion  was  adopted.  Yes,  to  the  eternal  honour  of  America 
among  the  nations  of  the  earth,  it  was  adopted,  in  spite  of  the 
obstacles,  which,  in  any  other  country,  and,  perhaps,  in  any 
other  age  of  (his,  would  have  been  insurmountable  ;  in  spite  of 
the  doubts  and  fears,  which  well-meaning  prejudice  creates 
for  itself,  and  which  party  so  artfully  inflames  into  stubborn 
ness  ;  in  spite  of  the  vice,  which  it  has  subjected  to  restraint, 
and  which  is  therefore  its  immortal  and  implacable  foe ;  in 
spite  of  the  oligarchies  in  some  of  the  states,  from  whom  it 
snatched  dominion  ;  it  was  adopted,  and  our  country  enjoys, 
one  more  invaluable  chance  for  its  union  and  happiness : 
invaluable  !  if  the  retrospect  of  the  dangers  we  have  escaped 
shall  sufficiently  inculcate  the  principles  we  have  so  tardily 
established.  Perhaps  multitudes  are  not  to  be  taught  by  their 
fears  only,  without  suffering  much  to  deepen  the  impression ; 
for  experience  brandishes  in  her  school  a  whip  of  scorpions, 
and  teaches  nations  her  summary  lessons  of  wisdom  by  the 
scars  and  wounds  of  their  adversity. 

THE  amendments  which  have  been  projected  in  some  of 
the  states  shew,  that,  in  them  at  least,  these  lessons  are  not 
well  remembered.  In  a  confederacy  of  states,  some  power 
ful,  others  weak,  the  weakness  of  the  federal  union  will,  sooner 
or  later,  encourage,  and  will  not  restrain,  the  ambition  and 
injustice  of  the  members :  the  weak  can  no  otherwise  be 
strong  or  safe,  but  in  the  energy  of  the  national  government. 
It  is  this  defect,  which  the  blind  jealousy  of  the  weak  states 
not  unfrequently  contributes  to  prolong,  that  has  proved  fatal 
to  all  the  confederations  that  ever  existed. 

ALTHOUGH  it  was  impossible  that  such  merit  as  WASH 
INGTON'S  should  not  produce  envy,  it  was  scarcely  possible 
that,  with  such  a  transcendent  reputation,  he  should  have  rivals. 
Accordingly,  he  was  unanimously  chosen  president  of  the 
United  States. 

As  a  general  and  a  patriot,  the  measure  of  his  glory  was 
already  full :  there  was  no  fame  left  for  him  to  excel  but  his 
own  ;  and  even  that  task,  the  mightiest  of  all  his  labours,  his 
civil  magistracy  has  accomplished. 
16 


122  EULOGY  ON 

No  sooner  did  the  new  government  begin  its  auspicious 
course,  than  order  seemed  to  arise  out  of  confusion.  Com 
merce  and  industry  awoke,  and  were  cheerful  at  their  labours  ; 
for  credit  and  confidence  awoke  with  them.  Every  where  was 
the  appearance  of  prosperity ;  and  the  only  fear  was,  that  its 
progress  was  too  rapid  to  consist  with  the  purity  and  simpli 
city  of  ancient  manners.  The  cares  and  labours  of  the  president 
were  incessant :  his  exhortations,  example,  and  authority,  were 
employed  to  excite  zeal  and  activity  for  the  publick  service  : 
able  officers  were  selected,  only  for  their  merits  ;  and  some  of 
them  remarkably  distinguished  themselves  by  their  successful 
management  of  the  publick  business.  Government  was  admin 
istered  with  such  integrity,  without  mystery,  and  in  so  pros 
perous  a  course,  that  it  seemed  to  be  wholly  employed  in  acts 
of  beneficence.  Though  it  has  made  many  thousand  malecon- 
tents,  it  has  never,  by  its  rigour  or  injustice,  made  one  man 
wretched. 

SUCH  was  the  state  of  publick  affairs  :  and  did  it  not  seem 
perfectly  to  ensure  uninterrupted  harmony  to  the  citizens  ?  Did 
they  not,  in  respect  to  their  government  and  its  administration, 
possess  their  whole  heart's  desire  ?  They  had  seen  and  suffer 
ed  long  the  want  of  an  efficient  constitution  ;  they  had  freely- 
ratified  it;  they  saw  WASHINGTON,  their  tried  friend, 'the 
father  of  his  country,  invested  with  its  powers :  they  knew 
that  he  could  not  exceed  or  betray  them,  without  forfeiting  his 
own  reputation.  Consider,  for  a  moment,  what  a  reputation  it 
was  :  such  as  no  man  ever  before  possessed  by  so  clear  a  title, 
and  in  so  high  a  degree.  His  fame  seemed  in  its  purity  to 
exceed  even  its  brightness  :  office  took  honour  from  his  accept 
ance,  but  conferred  none.  Ambition  stood  awed  and  darkened 
by  his  shadow.  For  where,  through  the  wide  earth,  was  the 
man  so  vain  as  to  dispute  precedence  with  him  ;  or  what  were 
the  honours  that  could  make  the  possessor  WASHINGTON'S 
superiour  ?  Refined  and  complex  as  the  ideas  of  virtue  are, 
even  the  gross  could  discern  in  his  life  the  infinite  superiority 
of  her  rewards.  Mankind  perceived  some  change  in  their 


WASHINGTON.  123 

ideas  of  greatness  :  the  splendour  of  power,  and  even  of  the 
name  of  conqueror,  had  grown  dim  in  their  eyes.  They  did 
not  know  that  WASHINGTON  could  augment  his  fame  ;  but 
they  knew  and  felt,  that  the  world's  wealth,  and  its  empire  too, 
would  be  a  bribe  far  beneath  his  acceptance. 

THIS  is  not  exaggeration  :  never  was  confidence  in  a  man 
and  a  chief  magistrate  more  widely  diffused,  or  more  solidly 
established. 

IF  it  had  been  in  the  nature  of  man,  that  we  should  enjoy 
liberty,  without  the  agitations  of  party,  the  United  States  had 
a  right,  under  these  circumstances,  to  expect  it :  but  it  was 
impossible.  Where  there  is  no  liberty,  they  may  be  exempt 
from  party.  It  will  seem  strange,  but  it  scarcely  admits  a 
doubt,  that  there  are  fewer  malecontents  in  Turkey,  than  in 
any  free  state  in  the  world.  Where  the  people  have  no  power, 
they  enter  into  no  contests,  and  are  not  anxious  to  know  how 
they  shall  use  it.  The  spirit  of  discontent  becomes  torpid  for 
want  of  employment,  and  sighs  itself  to  rest.  The  people 
sleep  soundly  in  their  chains,  and  do  not  even  dream  of  their 
weight.  They  lose  their  turbulence  with  their  energy,  and 
become  as  tractable  as  any  other  animals  :  a  state  of  degrada 
tion,  in  which  they  extort  our  scorn,  and  engage  our  pity,  for 
the  misery  they  do  not  feel.  Yet  that  heart  is  a  base  one,  and 
fit  only  for  a  slave's  bosom,  that  would  not  bleed  freely,  rather 
than  submit  to  such  a  condition  ;  for  liberty  with  all  its  parties 
and  agitations  is  more  desirable  than  slavery.  Who  would  not 
prefer  the  republicks  of  ancient  Greece,  where  liberty  once 
subsisted  in  its  excess,  its  delirium,  terrible  in  its  charms,  and 
glistening  to  the  last  with  the  blaze  of  the  very  fire  that  con 
sumed  it  ? 

I  DO  not  know  that  I  ought,  but  I  am  sure  that  I  do,  prefer 
those  republicks  to  the  dozing  slavery  of  the  modern  Greece, 
where  the  degraded  wretches  have  suffered  scorn  till  they 
merit  it,  where  they  tread  on  classick  ground,  on  the  ashes  of 
heroes  and  patriots,  unconscious  of  their  ancestry,  ignorant  of 
the  nature,  and  almost  of  the  name  of  liberty,  and  insensible 


124  EULOGY  ON 

even  to  the  passion  for  it.  Who,  on  this  contrast,  can  forbear 
to  say,  it  is  the  modern  Greece  that  lies  buried,  that  sleeps 
forgotten  in  the  caves  of  Turkish  darkness  ?  It  is  the  ancient 
Greece  that  lives  in  remembrance,  that  is  still  bright  with 
glory,  still  fresh  in  immortal  youth.  They  are  unworthy  of 
liberty,  who  entertain  a  less  exalted  idea  of  its  excellence. 
The  misfortune  is,  that  those  who  profess  to  be  its  most  pas 
sionate  admirers  have,  generally,  the  least  comprehension  of 
its  hazards  and  impediments :  they  expect,  that  an  enthusia&tick 
admiration  of  its  nature  will  reconcile  the  multitude  to  the  irk- 
someness  of  its  restraints.  Delusive  expectation !  WASHING 
TON  was  not  thus  deluded.  We  have  his  solemn  warning 
against  the  often  fatal  propensities  of  liberty.  He  had  reflected, 
that  men  are  often  false  to  their  country  and  their  honour,  false 
to  duty  and  even  to  their  interest,  but  multitudes  of  men  arc 
never  long  false  or  deaf  to  their  passions :  these  will  find  ob 
stacles  in  the  laws,  associates  in  party.  The  fellowships  thus 
formed  are  more  intimate,  and  impose  commands  more  im 
perious,  than  those  of  society. 

THUS  party  forms  a  state  within  the  state,  and  is  animated 
by  a  rivalship,  fear,  and  hatred,  of  its  superiour.  When  this 
happens,  the  merits  of  the  government  will  become  fresh  pro 
vocations  and  offences,  for  they  are  the  merits  of  an  enemy. 
No  wonder  then,  that  as  soon  as  party  found  the  virtue 
and  glory  of  WASHINGTON  were  obstacles,  the  attempt  was 
made,  by  calumny,  to  surmount  them  both.  For  this,  the 
greatest  of  all  his  trials,  we  know  that  he  was  prepared.  He 
knew,  that  the  government  must  possess  sufficient  strength 
from  within  or  without,  or  fall  a  victim  to  faction.  This  in- 
teriour  strength  was  plainly  inadequate  to  its  defence,  unless  it 
could  be  reinforced  from  without  by  the  zeal  and  patriotism  of 
the  citizens ;  and  this  latter  resource  was  certainly  as  accessi 
ble  to  president  WASHINGTON,  as  to  any  chief  magistrate  that 
ever  lived.  The  life  of  the  federal  government,  he  considered, 
was  in  the  breath  of  the  people's  nostrils :  whenever  they 
should  happen  to  be  so  infatuated  or  inflamed  as  to  abandon  its 


WASHINGTON.  125 

defence,  its  end  must  be  as  speedy,  and  might  be  as  tragical, 
as  a  constitution  for'  France. 

WHILE  the  president  was  thus  administering  the  govern 
ment  in  so  wise  and  just  a  manner,  as  to  engage  the  great 
majority  of  the  enlightened  and  virtuous  citizens  to  co-operate 
with  him  for  its  support,  and  while  he  indulged  the  hope  that 
time  and  habit  were  confirming  their  attachment,  the  French 
revolution  had  reached  that  point  in  its  progress,  when  its 
terrible  principles  began  to  agitate  all  civilized  nations.  I  will 
not,  on  this  occasion,  detain  you  to  express,  though  my  thoughts 
teem  with  it,  my  deep  abhorrence  of  that  revolution ;  its  des 
potism,  by  the  mob  or  the  military,  from  the  first,  and  its 
hypocrisy  of  morals  to  the  last.  Scenes  have  passed  there 
which  exceed  description,  and  which,  for  other  reasons,  I  will 
not  attempt  to  describe  ;  for  it  would  not  be  possible,  even  at 
this  distance  of  time,  and  with  the  sea  between  us  and  France, 
to  go  through  with  the  recital  of  them,  without  perceiving 
horrour  gather,  like  a  frost,  about  the  heart,  and  almost  stop  its 
pulse.  That  revolution  .has  been  constant  in  nothing  but  its 
vicissitudes,  and  its  promises  ;  always  delusive,  but  always  re 
newed,  to  establish  philosophy  by  crimes,  and  liberty  by  the 
sword.  The  people  of  France,  if  they  are  not  like  the  modern 
Greeks,  find  their  cap  of  liberty  is  a  soldier's  helmet :  and  with 
all  their  imitation  of  dictators  and  consuls,  their  exactest  simi 
litude  to  these  Roman  ornaments,  is  in  their  chains.  The 
nations  of  Europe  perceive  another  resemblance,  in  their  all- 
conquering  ambition. 

BUT  it  is  only  the  influence  of  that  event  on  America,  and 
on  the  measures  of  the  president,  that  belongs  to  my  subject. 
It  would  be  ingratefully  wrong  to  his  character,  to  be  silent  in 
respect  to  a  part  of  it,  which  has  the  most  signally  illustrated 
his  virtues. 

THE  genuine  character  of  that  revolution  is  not  even  yet  so 
well  understood,  as  the  dictates  of  self-preservation  require  it 
should  be.  The  chief  duty  and  care  of  all  governments  is  to 
protect  the  rights  of  property,  and  the  tranquillity  of  society. 


126  EULOGY  ON 

The  leaders  of  the  French  revolution,  from  the  beginning, 
excited  the  poor  against  the  rich.  This  has  made  the  rich  poor, 
but  it  will  never  make  the  poor  rich.  On  the  contrary,  they 
were  used  only  as  blind  instruments  to  make  those  leaders 
masters,  first  of  the  adverse  party,  and  then  of  the  state.  Thus 
the  powers  of  the  state  were  turned  round  into  a  direction 
exactly  contrary  to  the  proper  one,  not  to  preserve  tranquillity 
and  restrain  violence,  but  to  excite  violence  by  the  lure  of 
power,  and  plunder,  and  vengeance.  Thus  all  France  has  been, 
and  still  is,  as  much  the  prize  of  the  ruling  party,  as  a  captured 
ship,  and  if  any  right  or  possession  has  escaped  confiscation, 
there  is  none  that  has  not  been  liable  to  it. 

THUS  it  clearly  appears,  that,  in  its  origin,  its  character,  and 
its  means,  the  government  of  that  country  is  revolutionary ; 
that  is,  not  only  different  from,  but  directly  contrary  to,  every 
regular  and  well-ordered  society.  It  is  a  danger,  similar  in  its 
kind,  and  at  least  equal  in  degree,  to  that,  with  which  ancient 
Rome  menaced  her  enemies.  The  allies  of  Rome  were  slaves ; 
and  it  cost  some  hundred  years  efforts  of  her  policy  and  arms, 
to  make  her  enemies  her  allies.  Nations,  at  this  day,  can  trust 
no  better  to  treaties  ;  they  cannot  even  trust  to  arms,  unless 
they  are  used  with  a  spirit  and  perseverance  becoming  the 
magnitude  of  their  danger.  For  the  French  revolution  has 
been,  from  the  first,  hostile  to  all  right  and  justice,  to  all  peace 
and  order  in  society;  and,  therefore,  its  very  existence  has 
been  a  state  of  warfare  against  the  civilized  world,  and  most 
of  all  against  free  and  orderly  republicks,  for  such  are  never 
without  factions,  ready  to  be  the  allies  of  France,  and  to  aid 
her  in  the  work  of  destruction.  Accordingly,  scarcely  any  but 
republicks  have  they  subverted.  Such  governments,  by  shew 
ing  in  practice  what  republican  liberty  w,  detect  French  im 
posture,  and  shew  what  their  pretexts  are  not. 

To  subvert  them,  therefore,  they  had,  besides  the  facility 
that  faction  affords,  the  double  excitement  of  removing  a 
reproach,  and  converting  their  greatest  obstacles  into  their 
most  efficient  auxiliaries. 


WASHINGTON.  127 

WHO  then,  on  careful  reflection,  will  be  surprised,  that  the 
French  and  their  partizans  instantly  conceived  the  desire,  and 
made  the  most  powerful  attempts,  to  revolutionize  the  Ameri 
can  government  ?  But  it  will  hereafter  seem  strange  that  their 
excesses  should  be  excused,  as  the  effects  of  a  struggle  for 
liberty ;  and  that  so  many  of  our  citizens  should  be  flattered, 
while  they  were  insulted  with  the  idea,  that  our  example  was 
copied,  and  our  principles  pursued.  Nothing  was  ever  more 
false,  or  more  fascinating.  Our  liberty  depends  on  our  educa 
tion,  our  laws,  and  habits,  to  which  even  prejudices  yield  ;  on 
the  dispersion  of  our  people  on  farms,  and  on  the  almost  equal 
diffusion  of  property ;  it  is  founded  on  morals  and  religion, 
whose  authority  reigns  in  the  heart;  and  on  the  influence  all 
these  produce  on  publick  opinion,  before  that  opinion  governs 
rulers.  Here  liberty  is  restraint ;  there  it  is  violence :  here  it  is 
mild  and  cheering,  like  the  morning  sun  of  our  summer, 
brightening  the  hills,  and  making  the  vallies  green ;  there  it 
is  like  the  sun,  when  his  rays  dart  pestilence  on  the  sands  of 
Africa.  American  liberty  calms  and  restrains  the  licentious 
passions,  like  an  angel  that  says  to  the  winds  and  troubled  seas, 
be  still ;  but  how  has  French  licentiousness  appeared  to  the 
wretched  citizens  of  Switzerland  and  Venice  ?  Do  not  their 
haunted  imaginations,  even  when  they  wake,  represent  her  as 
a  monster,  with  eyes  that  flash  wild  fire,  hands  that  hurl  thun 
derbolts,  a  voice  that  shakes  the  foundation  of  the  hills  ?  She 
stands,  and  her  ambition  measures  the  earth ;  she  speaks,  and 
an  epidemick  fury  seizes  the  nations. 

EXPERIENCE  is  lost  upon  us,  if  we  deny,  that  it  had  seized 
a  large  part  of  the  American  nation.  It  is  as  sober,  and  intel 
ligent,  as  free,  and  as  worthy  to  be  free,  as  any  in  the  world  ; 
yet,  like  all  other  people,  we  have  passions  and  prejudices, 
and  they  had  received  a  violent  impulse,  which,  for  a  time, 
misled  us. 

JACOBINISM  had  become  here,  as  in  France,  rather  a  sect 
than  a  party,  inspiring  a  fanaticism  that  was  equally  intolerant 
and  contagious.  The  delusion  was  general  enough  to  be  thought 


128  EULOGY  ON 

the  voice  of  the  people,  therefore,  claiming  authority  without 
proof,  and  jealous  enough  to  exact  acquiescence  without  a 
murmur  of  contradiction.  Some  progress  was  made  in  training 
multitudes  to  be  vindictive  and  ferocious.  To  them  nothing 
seemed  amiable,  but  the  revolutionary  justice  of  Paris ;  nothing 
terrible,  but  the  government  and  justice  of  America.  The 
very  name  of  patriots  was  claimed  and  applied,  in  proportion 
as  the  citizens  had  alienated  their  hearts  from  America,  and 
transferred  their  affections  to  their  foreign  corrupter.  Party 
discerned  its  intimate  connection  of  interest  with  France,  and 
consummated  its  profligacy  by  yielding  to  foreign  influence. 

THE  views  of  these  allies  required,  that  this  country  should 
engage  in  war  with  Great  Britain.  Nothing  less  would  give 
to  France  all  the  means  of  annoying  this  dreaded  rival :  nothing 
}ess  would  ensure  the  subjection  of  America,  as  a  satellite  to 
the  ambition  of  France :  nothing  else  could  make  a  revolution 
here  perfectly  inevitable. 

FOR  this  end,  the  minds  of  the  citizens  were  artfully  inflam 
ed,  and  the  moment  was  watched,  and  impatiently  waited  for, 
when  their  long  heated  passions  should  be  in  fusion,  to  pour 
them  forthrj1  like  the  lava  of  a  volcano,  to  blacken  and  consume 
the  peace  and  government  of  our  country. 

THE  systematick  operations  of  a  faction  under  foreign  in 
fluence  had  begun  to  appear,  and  were  successively  pursued, 
in  a  manner  too  deeply  alarming  to  be  soon  forgotten.  Who 
of  us  does  not  remember  this  worst  of  evils  in  this  worst  of 
ways  ?  Shame  would  forget,  if  it  could,  that,  in  one  of  the  states, 
amendments  were  proposed  to  break  down  the  federal  senate, 
which,  as  in  the  state  governments,  is  a  great  bulwark  of  the 
publick  order.  To  break  down  another,  an  extravagant  judi 
ciary  power  was  claimed  for  states.  In  another  state  a  rebellion 
was  fomented  by  the  agent  of  France  :  and  who,  without  fresh 
indignation,  can  remember,  that  the  powers  of  government 
were  openly  usurped,  troops  levied,  and  ships  fitted  out  to 
fight  for  her  ?  Nor  can  any  true  friend  to  our  government 
consider  without  dread,  that,  soon  afterwards,  the  treaty-mak- 


WASHINGTON.  129 

Lng  power  was  boldly  challenged  for  a  branch  of  the  govern 
ment,  from  which  the  constitution  has  wisely  withholden  it. 

I  AM  oppressed,  and  know  not  how  to  proceed  with  my 
subject.  WASHINGTON,  blessed  be  GOD  !  who  endued  him 
with  wisdom  and  clothed  him  with  power ;  WASHINGTON 
issued  his  proclamation  of  neutrality,  and,  at  an  early  period, 
arrested  the  intrigues  of  France  and  the  passions  of  his  country 
men,  on  the  very  edge  of  the  precipice  of  war  and  revolution. 

THIS  act  of  firmness,  at  the  hazard  of  his  reputation  and 
peace,  entitles  him  to  the  name  of  the  first  of  patriots.  Time 
was  gained  for  the  citizens  to  recover  their  virtue  and  good 
sense,  and  they  soon  recovered  them.  The  crisis  was  passed, 
and  America  was  saved. 

You  and  I,  most  respected  fellow  citizens,  should  be  sooner 
tired  than  satisfied  in  recounting  the  particulars  of  this  illus 
trious  man's  life. 

Plow  great  he  appeared  while  he  administered  the  govern 
ment,  how  much  greater  when  he  retired  from  it,  how  he 
accepted  the  chief  military  command  under  his  wise  and 
upright  successor,  how  his  life  was  unspotted  like  his  fame, 
and  how  his  death  was  worthy  of  his  life,  are  so  many  distinct 
subjects  of  instruction,  and  each  of  them  singly  more  than 
enough  for  an  elogium.  I  leave  the  task,  however,  to  his 
tory  and  to  posterity ;  they  will  be  faithful  to  it. 

IT  is  not  impossible,  that  some  will  affect  to  consider  the 
honours  paid  to  this  great  patriot  by  the  nation,  as  excessive, 
idolatrous,  and  degrading  to  freemen,  who  are  all  equal.  I 
answer,  that  refusing  to  virtue  its  legitimate  honours  would 
not  prevent  their  being  lavished,  in  future,  on  any  worthless 
and  ambitious  favourite.  If  this  day's  example  should  have  its 
natural  effect,  it  will  be  salutary.  Let  such  honours  be  so  con 
ferred  only  when,  in  future,  they  shall  be  so  merited :  then  the 
publick  sentiment  will  not  be  misled,  nor  the  principles  of  a 
just  equality  corrupted.  The  best  evidence  of  reputation  is  a 
man's  whole  life.  We  have  now,  alas  !  all  WASHINGTON'S 
before  us.  There  has  scarcely  appeared  a  really  great  man, 
17 


130  EULOGY  ON 

whose  character  has  been  more  admired  in  his  life  time,  or 
less  correctly  understood  by  his  admirers.  When  it  is  com 
prehended,  it  is  no  easy  task  to  delineate  its  excellences  in 
such  a  manner,  as  to  give  to  the  portrait  both  interest  and 
resemblance  ;  for  it  requires  thought  and  study  to  understand 
the  true  ground  of  the  superiority  of  his  character  over  many 
others,  whom  he  resembled  in  the  principles  of  action,  and 
even  in  the  manner  of  acting.  But  perhaps  he  excels  all  the 
great  men  that  ever  lived,  in  the  steadiness  of  his  adherence 
to  his  maxims  of  life,  and  in  the  uniformity  of  all  his  conduct 
to  the  same  maxims.  These  maxims,  though  wise,  were  yet 
not  so  remarkable  for  their  wisdom,  as  for  their  authority  over 
his  life  :  for  if  there  were  any  errours  in  his  judgment,  (and  he 
discovered  as  few  as  any  man)  we  know  of  no  blemishes  in  his 
virtue.  He  was  the  patriot  without  reproach  :  he  loved  his 
country  well  enough  to  hold  his  success  in  serving  it  an  ample 
recompense.  Thus  far  self-love  and  love  of  country  coincided : 
but  when  his  country  needed  sacrifices,  that  no  other  man 
could,  or  perhaps  would  be  willing  to  make,  he  did  not  even 
hesitate.  This  was  virtue  in  its  most  exalted  character. 
More  than  once  he  put  his  fame  at  hazard,  when  he  had  reason 
to  think  it  would  be  sacrificed,  at  least  in  this  age.  Two 
instances  cannot  be  denied :  when  the  army  was  disbanded ; 
and  again,  when  he  stood,  like  Leonidas  at  the  pass  of  Ther 
mopylae,  to  defend  our  independence  against  France. 

IT  is  indeed  almost  as  difficult  to  draw  his  character,  as  the 
portrait  of  virtue.  The  reasons  are  similar  :  our  ideas  of 
moral  excellence  are  obscure,  because  they  are  complex,  and 
we  are  obliged  to  resort  to  illustrations.  WASHINGTON'S 
example  is  the  happiest,  to  shew  what  virtue  is ;  and  to  deli 
neate  his  character,  we  naturally  expatiate  on  the  beauty  of 
virtue  :  much  must  be  felt,  and  much  imagined.  His  pre 
eminence  is  not  so  much  to  be  seen  in  the  display  of  any  one 
virtue,  as  in  the  possession  of  them  all,  and  in  the  practice  of 
the  most  difficult.  Hereafter,  therefore,  his  character  must  be 
studied  before  it  will  be  striking  ;  and  then  it  will  be  admitted 
as  a  model,  a  precious  one  to  a  free  republick  ! 


WASHINGTON  131. 

IT  is  no  less  difficult  to  speak  of  his  talents.  They  were 
adapted  to  lead,  without  dazzling  mankind  ;  and  to  draw  forth 
and  employ  the  talents  of  others,  without  being  misled  by 
them.  In  this  he  was  certainly  superiour,  that  he  neither 
mistook  nor  misapplied  his  own.  His  great  modesty  and 
reserve  would  have  concealed  them,  if  great  occasions  had 
not  called  them  forth  ;  and  then,  as  he  never  spoke  from  the 
affectation  to  shine,  nor  acted  from  any  sinister  motives,  it 
is  from  their  effects  only  that  we  are  to  judge  of  their  great 
ness  and  extent.  In  publick  trusts,  where  men,  acting  con 
spicuously,  are  cautious,  and  in  those  private  concerns,  where 
few  conceal  or  resist  their  weaknesses,  WASHINGTON  was 
uniformly  great,  pursuing  right  conduct  from  right  max 
ims.  His  talents  were  such  as  assist  a  sound  judgment, 
and  ripen  with  it.  His  prudence  was  consummate,  and 
seemed  to  take  the  direction  of  his  powers  and  passions  ;  for, 
as  a  soldier,  he  was  more  solicitous  to  avoid  mistakes  that 
might  be  fatal,  than  to  perform  exploits  that  are  brilliant ; 
and  as  a  statesman,  to  adhere  to  just  principles,  however  old, 
than  to  pursue  novelties  ;  and  therefore,  in  both  characters, 
his  qualities  were  singularly  adapted  to  the  interest,  and  were 
tried  in  the  greatest  perils,  of  the  country  His  habits  of 
inquiry  were  so  far  remarkable,  that  he  was  never  satisfied 
with,  investigating,  nor  desisted  from  it,  so  long  as  he  had 
less  than  all  the  light  that  he  could  obtain  upon  a  subject, 
and  then  he  made  his  decision  without  bias. 

THIS  command  over  the  partialities  that  so  generally  stop 
men  short,  or  turn  them  aside  in  their  pursuit  of  truth,  is  one 
of  the  chief  causes  of  his  unvaried  course  of  right  conduct  in 
so  many  difficult  scenes,  where  every  human  actor  must  be 
presumed  to  err.  If  he  had  strong  passions,  he  had  learned 
to  subdue  them,  and  to  be  moderate  and  mild.  If  he  had  weak 
nesses,  he  concealed  them,  which  is  rare,  and  excluded  them 
from  the  government  of  his  temper  and  conduct,  which  is  still 
more  rare.  If  he  loved  fame,  he  never  made  improper  com- 


132  EULOGY  ON 

pliances  for  what  is  called  popularity.  The  fame  he  enjoyed 
is  of  the  kind  that  will  last  for  ever ;  yet  it  was  rather  the 
effect,  than  the  motive,  of  his  conduct.  Some  future  Plu 
tarch  will  search  for  a  parallel  to  his  character.  Eparni- 
nondas  is  perhaps  the  brightest  name  of  all  antiquity.  GUI- 
WASHINGTON  resembled  him  in  the  purity  and  ardour  of 
his  patriotism ;  and,  like  him,  he  first  exalted  the  glory  of 
his  country.  There,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  the  parallel  ends  : 
for  Thebes  fell  with  Epaminondas.  But  such  comparisons 
cannot  be  pursued  far,  without  departing  from  the  similitude. 
For  we  shall  find  it  as  difficult  to  compare  great  men  as  great 
rivers  :  some  we  admire  for  the  length  and  rapidity  of  their 
current,  and  the  grandeur  of  their  cataracts  ;  others,  for  the 
majestick  silence  and  fulness  of  their  streams :  we  cannot 
bring  them  together  to  measure  the  difference  of  their 
waters.  The  unambitious  life  of  WASHINGTON,  declining 
fame,  yet  courted  by  it,  seemed,  like  the  Ohio,  to  choose  its 
long  way  through  solitudes,  diffusing  fertility  ;  or  like  his 
own  Potowmack,  widening  and  deepening  his  channel,  as 
he  approaches  the  sea,  and  displaying  most  the  usefulness 
and  serenity  of  his  greatness  towards  the  end  of  his  course. 
Such  a  citizen  would  do  honour  to  any  country.  The  con 
stant  veneration  and  affection  of  his  country  will  shew,  that 
it  was  worthy  of  such  a  citizen. 

HOWEVER  his  military  fame  may  excite  the  wonder  of 
mankind,  it  is  chiefly  by  his  civil  magistracy,  that  his  exam 
ple  will  instruct  them.  Great  generals  have  arisen  in  all  ages 
of  the  world,  and  perhaps  most  in  those  of  despotism  and 
darkness.  In  times  of  violence  and  convulsion,  they  rise, 
by  the  force  of  the  whirlwind,  high  enough  to  ride  in  it,  and 
direct  the  storm.  Like  meteors,  they  glare  on  the  black 
clouds  with  a  splendour,  that,  while  it  dazzles  and  terrifies, 
makes  nothing  visible  but  the  darkness.  The  fame  of  heroes 
is  indeed  growing  vulgar :  they  multiply  in  every  long  war  ; 
they  stand  in  history,  and  thicken  in  their  ranks,  almost  as 
undistinguished  as  their  own  soldiers. 


WASHINGTON.  133 

BUT  such  a  chief  magistrate  as  WASHINGTON  appears 
like  the  pole  star  in  a  clear  sky,  to  direct  the  skilful  states 
man.  His  presidency  will  form  an  epoch,  and  be  distinguished 
as  the  age  of  WASHINGTON.  Already  it  assumes  its  high 
place  in  the  political  region.  Like  the  milky  way,  it  whitens 
along  its  allotted  portion  of  the  hemisphere.  The  latest 
generations  of  men  will  survey,  through  the  telescope  of 
history,  the  space  where  so  many  virtues  blend  their  rays, 
and  delight  to  separate  them  into  groups  and  distinct  virtues. 
As  the  best  illustration  of  them,  the  living  monument,  to 
which  the  first  of  patriots  would  have  chosen  to  consign  his 
fame,  it  is  my  earnest  prayer  to  heaven,  that  our  country  may 
subsist,  even  to  that  late  day,  in  the  plenitude  of  its  liberty 
and  happiness,  and  mingle  Us  mild  glory  with  WASHING 
TON'S. 


[    134    3 

SCHOOL  BOOKS. 

I'ifSt published  in  the  Palladium^  January,  1801. 


IT 


has  been  the  custom,  of  late  years,  to  put  a  number  of 
little  books  into  the  hands  of  children,  containing  fables  and 
moral  lessons.  This  is  very  well,  because  it  is  right  first  to 
raise  curiosity,  and  then  to  guide  it.  Many  books  for  chil 
dren  are,  however,  injudiciously  compiled:  the  language  is 
too  much  raised  above  the  ideas  of  that  tender  age ;  the 
moral  is  drawn  from  the  fable,  they  know  not  why  ;  and  when 
they  gain  wisdom  from  experience,  they  will  see  the  restric 
tions  and  exceptions  which  are  necessary  to  the  rules  of 
conduct  laid  down  in  their  books,  but  which  such  books  do 
not  give.  Some  of  the  most  admired  works  of  this  kind 
abound  with  a  frothy  sort  of  sentiment ,  as  the  readers  of  novels 
are  pleased  to  call  it,  the  chief  merit  of  which  consists  in 
shedding  tears,  and  giving  away  money.  Is  it  right,  or  agree 
able  to  good  sense,  to  try  to  make  the  tender  age  more  ten 
der  ?  Pity  and  generosity,  though  amiable  impulses,  are  blind 
ones,  and,  as  we  grow  older,  are  to  be  managed  by  rules,  and 
restrained  by  wisdom. 

IT  is  not  clear,  that  the  heart,  at  thirty,  is  any  the  softer  for 
weeping,  at  ten,  over  one  of  Berquin's  fables,  the  point  of 
which  turns  on  a  beggar  boy's  being  ragged,  and  a  rich  man's 
son  being  well  clad.  Some  persons,  indeed,  appear  to  have 
shed  all  their  tears  of  sympathy  before  they  reach  the  period 
of  mature  age.  Most  young  hearts  are  tender,  and  tender 
enough  ;  the  object  of  education  is  rather  to  direct  these 
emotions,  however  amiable,  than  to  augment  them. 

WHY  then,  if  these  books  for  children  must  be  retained, 
as  they  will  be,  should  not  the  bible  regain  the  place  it  once 
held  as  a  school  book  ?  Its  morals  are  pure,  its  examples 
captivating  and  noble.  The  reverence  for  the  sacred  book, 


SCHOOL  BOOKS.  135 

that  is  thus  early  impressed,  lasts  long  ;  and,  probably,  if  not 
impressed  in  infancy,  never  takes  firm  hold  of  the  mind. 
One  consideration  more  is  important.  In  no  book  is  there 
so  good  English,  so  pure  and  so  elegant ;  and  by  teaching  all 
the  same  book,  they  will  speak  alike,  and  the  bible  will  justly 
remain  the  standard  of  language  as  well  as  of  faith.  A  bar 
barous  provincial  jargon  will  be  banished,  and  taste,  corrupted 
by  pompous  Johnsonian  affectation,  will  be  restored. 


[    136 


FALKLAND.     N°.  I. 

FIRST   PUBLISHED   IN   THE  PALLADIUM,  FEBRUARY,  180.1,, 
TO  NEW-ENGLAND  MEN. 

Ji  II E  change  of  the  American  administration  is  an  event 
to  create  surprise  and  alarm. 

How  will  it  be  considered,  and  what  will  be  its  effects  ? 
In  Europe,  it  will  certainly  discredit  republican  principles. 
Those  who  did  not  reason  deeply,  but  took  their  opinions  of 
America  as  they  found  them  most  prevalent,  will  exclaim, 
Paine,  and  Barlow,  and  half  the  book-makers,  and  more  than 
half  the  expatriated  American  travellers,  have  told  us,  that 
republican  principles  were  pure  in  the  new  world,  as  they 
flowed  from  the  fountain  head,  the  people,  and  the  rights  of 
man,  and  that  plenty,  contentment,  and  equality  reigned,  as 
in  the  golden  age. 

WHATEVER  interest  our  national  vanity  may  take  in  these 
representations,  however  land-jobbers  may  try  to  prolong 
their  credit  by  painting  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  as  a  new 
Arcadia,  the  evidence  of  facts  will  prevail.  It  will  be  known, 
that  the  government  had  enemies,  and  that  our  political  mil- 
lenium  has  bred  thousands  of  malecontents.  They  will  see, 
that  the  men  who  said  the  constitution  ought  not  to  have  had 
being,  are  entrusted  with  its  life  and  authority. 

THEY  are  to  be  bound  by  duty  and  by  oaths  to  recommend 
to  confidence  what  they  have  blasted  with  suspicion  ;  to  en 
force  what  they  have  resisted  ;  and  to  spare  the  prey  they  have 
so  long  hunted,  and  at  last  taken.  As  the  party  in  power  has 
called  the  government  a  bastard  of  monarchy,  a  government 
already  rotten,  though  not  ripe,  foreigners  will  conclude,  from 
the  event  of  the  election,  that  this  is  the  publick  sentiment 
of  the  nation,  and  that  the  Americans  are  sick  of  their  repub 
lican  experiment. 


FALKLAND.  137 

Is  it  not  to  all  the  European  world  the  evidence  of  facts, 
that  we  are  at  length  fully  convinced  that  the  antifederalists, 
who  were  against  trying  it,  were  very  much  in  the  right  ? 
Republican  principles  will  hold,  therefore,  in  Europe,  nearly 
the  same  rank  with  the  principles  of  swindling.  Nothing, 
they  will  insist,  can  be  so  bewitching  as  their  promise ;  no 
thing  so  bitter  or  so  sure  as  their  disappointment.  Perhaps, 
as  Europe  is  not  fit  for  republican  forms  of  government,  it  is 
best  that  they  should  not  any  longer  admire  what  they  ought 
not  to  adopt,  and  what,  if  adopted,  they  could  not  maintain. 

FOREIGNERS,  who  examine  events  with  an  eye  of  scrutiny, 
will  not  hesitate  to  foretell,  that  the  change  is  no  little  cabinet 
scene,  where  one  minister  comes  into  power  and  another 
goes  out,  hut  a  great  moral  revolution,  proceeding  from  the 
vices  and  the  passions  of  men,  shifting  officers  to-day,  that 
measures,  and  principles,  and  systems,  may  be  shifted  to 
morrow.  They  will  say,  we  know  something  of  Mr.  Monroe, 
his  astonishing  complaisance  to  the  tyrants  of  Paris,  and  the 
no  less  astonishing  rudeness  and  insult  thrown  by  Barras  on 
this  minister's  government.  By  such  a  sample  we  may 
judge,  they  will  cry,  of  the  spirit  and  character  of  the  new 
American  rulers  ;  for  he  ib  in  credit,  and  his  party  associates 
are  coming  into  power.  The  Washington  and  Adams  policy 
has  built  up  much.  What  have  they  built,  that  the  artificers 
of  ruin  have  not  already  denounced,  and  meditated  to  destroy  ? 
Will  Mazzei's  correspondent  cherish  what  he  hates,  or,  in  the 
day  of  democratick  wrath,  spare  what  he  dreads  ? 

THE  banks  and  publick  paper,  the  "  sceleris  vestigia  nos- 
"  tri,"  will  be  expected  speedily  to  fall.  Commerce  will  be 
represented,  as  in  the  days  of  opposition,  when  the  first 
frigates  were  voted  against  the  Algerines,  as  too  expensive 
to  be  protected  by  a  naval  force.  Down  then  with  the  navy. 
Down  goes  commerce,  the  fruitful  mother  of  British  debts, 
the  grandmother  and  nurse  of  British  influence.  Why  should 
we  maintain  soldiers  ?  Colonel  Fries  is  now  attached  to  the. 
administration,  and;  therefore,  we  may  depend  on  him3  and 
18 


138  FALKLAND. 

on  men  like  him,  and  on  some  generals  and  brigadiers  of  the 
militia,  to  defend  the  excise  and  land-tax  laws  from  being 
refirMlcd  by  the  sovereigns  of  a  whiskey  congress,  convened 
at  a  sedition  poie.  Down  then  with  the  army— thut  is  already 
down  ;  clown  with  the  diminutive  image  of  an  army  on  the 
frontiers,  a  miniature  that  preserves  deformity  and  loses  the 
grace  and  resemblance.  Let  the  sons  of  Logan  come  and 
help  us  to  establish  the  happy  state  of  nature  and  primitive 
virtue.  What  need  of  revenue  more  than  impost  will  yield? 
Retrench  expenses  ;  get  rid  of  the  vermin  that  fatten 
upon  it,  and  very  little  revenue  will  answer.  The  blood 
suckers  will  grow  thin,  perhaps  die,  but  the  fieofile  will  thrive  : 
they  will  be  freed  from  exaction  and  guarded  against  cor 
ruption.  So  long  as  their  lands,  and  houses,  and  distilleries 
pay  tribute,  they  are  not  free  ;  so  long  as  this  tribute  goes  to 
pamper  an  insolent  upstart  race  of  funding  system  lords,  they 
are  not  equal. 

WISE  Europeans  will  ask,  what  can  protect  the  rights  of 
the  few,  when  the  rage  of  the  many  is  thus  directed  against 
them  ?  We  have  seen  the  French  clergy  stripped  in  a  night. 
One  vote  of  congress  would  put  the  funded  debt  into  the 
family  tomb  with  paper  money.  What  will  be  the  security 
of  right  that  is  unpopular  ?  and  what  shall  prolong  the  life 
of  the  creatures  of  popularity  ?  You  cannot  keep  the  insects, 
that  buzz  in  the  August  sunshine,  over  winter. 

To  European  observers  the  prospect  of  America  will  ap 
pear  to  sadden,  and  its  horizon  to  lower. 

THERE  is  scarcely  any  evil,  that  has  not  been  foretold  in 
our  own  gazettes,  and  that  good  men  do  not  unfeignedly 
apprehend  from  the  change. 

IF  'he  violent  jacobins  should  have  it  in  their  power  to  do 
what  they  wish,  there  is  not  a  shadow  of  doubt,  that  they 
would  make  smooth  work  of  all  the  most  cherished  systems 
of  the  administrations  of  Washington  and  Adams.  When 
they  heard  of  the  success  of  their  ticket,  it  is  certain  they 


FALKLAND.  139 

thought  all  this  would  be  in  their  power,  and  they  began  to 
make  feasts  and  to  exclaim  : 

Ag-gredere  O  mag-nos,  aderi*  jam  tempus,  honores, 
which,  in  English,  is,  now  is  the  glorious  time  for  jacobins  to 
get  offices. 

IF  they  should  administer  the  government  according  to  the 
principles  they  have  avowed  in  the  gazettes  of  the  party,  and 
the  examples  in  France  which  they  have  so  much  admired, 
and  if  they  should  abolish  and  new  model  all  that  they  have  so 
much  professed  to  detest  in  the  laws  of  congress,  there  is 
indeed  no  curse  of  a  thorough-going  revolution,  with  which 
we  are  not  threatened. 


FALKLAND    N°.  II. 

TO     NEW-ENGLAND     MEN. 

BEFORE  evils  have  happened,  it  is  the  part  of  wisdom  to 
exhibit  their  worst  aspects.  When  they  are  known  to  be 
inevitable,  or  have  actually  occurred,  it  is  no  less  the  office  of 
wisdom  to  display  their  palliations  or  their  remedies.  It  would 
be  cowardly,  in  despair,  to  aggravate  their  weight,  or  to  sink 
under  its  pressure.  No  :  bad  as  our  prospects  are,  they  are 
not  hopeless.  There  is  a  sure  resource  for  hope  in  ourselves? 
the  steady  good  sense  of  New-England  will  be  a  shield  of 
defence.  Tu  ne  cede  mails,  sed  contra  audentior  ito.  The 
publick  spirit  and  opinion  of  this  division  of  the  union  con 
stitute  a  force,  which  the  enemies  of  our  constitutions  and 
fundamental  interests  will  labour  to  corrupt,  but  will  not  dare 
to  withstand. 

FOR  New-England  is  not  inhabited  by  a  conquered  people. 
Their  opinions  will  have  some  influence  on  the  fiolicy,  if  their 
commerce,  navigation,  and  credit  should  have  no  hold  on  the 
hearts  of  their  rulers.  Even  conquerors,  unless  they  were 
willing  to  have  their  fighting  work  to  do  over  again,  would 


140  FALKLAND. 

choose  to  mask  under  the  most  specious  disguises  the  viola- 
lion  of  rights  and  the  contempt  of  opinions. 

THERE  is  evidence  enough,  that  the  party  expected  to  rule 
is  not  friendly  to  the  commerce  of  any  of  the  states,  and  espe 
cially  to  the  fisheries  and  navigation  of  the  Eastern  states. 
We  do  not  want,  they  argue,  an  expensive  navy  for  the  sake 
of  these  ;  nor  these  for  the  sake  of  a  navy.  Navies  breed  wars, 
and  wars  augment  navies,  and  both  augment  expenses,  and  this 
brings  forth  funding  systems,  banks,  and  corrupt  influence. 

THESE  few  words  contain  the  system  of  our  new  politicians, 
which  it  is  probable  they  will  be,  in  future,  as  in  time  past, 
complaisant  enough  to  one  another  to  call  philosophy.  Such 
illuminism,  such  visions  of  bedlam  have  visited  some  famous 
heads  that  do  not  repose  within  its  cells,  and  condensed  their 
thin  essences  into  schemes  of  political  reform,  projects  of 
cheap  governments,  that  are  to  be  rich  without  revenue,  strong 
without  force,  venerable  with  popular  prejudice  directed  by 
faction  against  them.  Learned  fools  are  of  all  the  greatest,  as 
well  as  the  most  indocile.  Accordingly,  in  despite  of  the  ex 
perience  of  all  the  world  and  of  our  own,  in  despite  of  common 
sense  and  the  dictates  of  obvious  duty,  such  men,  high  in  re 
putation,  and  expected  to  be  high  in  office,  have  insisted  that 
we  do  not  want  a  single  soldier,  nor  a  single  armed  ship :  that 
credit  is  an  abuse,  an  evil  to  be  cured  only  by  having  none,  a 
cancer  that  eats,  and  will  kill  unless  cut  or  burnt  out  with 
causticks  :  that  if  we  have  any  superfluity,  foreigners  will  come 
for  it,  if  they  need  it,  and  if  they  do  not,  it  would  be  a  folly  and 
a  loss  for  us  to  carry  it  to  them.  They  tell  us  with  emphasis, 
and  seem  to  expect  our  vanity  will  gain  them  credit  for  saying, 
that  America  ought  to  renounce  the  sea  and  to  draw  herself 
closely  into  her  shell  :  let  the  mad  world  trade,  negociate, 
and  fight,  while  we  Americans  live  happily,  like  the  Chinese, 
enjoying  abundance,  independence,  and  liberty. 

THIS  is  said  by  persons  clad  in  English  broadcloth  and  Irish 
linen,  who  import  their  conveniences  from  England,  and  their 
politicks  from  France.  It  is  solemnly  pronounced  as  the  only 
wise  policy  for  a  country,  where  the  children  multiply  faster 


FALKLAND.  141 

than  the  sheep,  and  it  is,  inconsistently  enough  too,  pronounced 
by  those  who  would  have  all  farmers,  no  manufacturers. 

NOTIONS  of  this  stamp  of  sublimated  extravagance  have  been 
often  in  the  heads  of  book-makers  and  projectors.  Some 
Frenchman  suggested  a  scheme  of  like  wisdom,  to  bind  kings 
and  princes,  not  rejiublicks,  to  keep  the  peace,  and  be  of 
good  behaviour ;  and  there  are  some  declaimers,  who  would 
have  the  Indians  on  the  frontiers  enter  into  recognizance,  and 
thus  get  rid  of  the  expense  and  danger  of  a  standing  army  of 
Jour  regiments.  But  they  would  have  a  militia,  half  a  million 
strong,  made  expert  soldiers  by  training  them,  unpaid,  till 
they  become  equal  to  veterans.  A  militia  system  is  right ; 
these  reformers,  however,  never  touch  truth  but  to  distort  it, 
nor  any  sound  principle  but  to  drive  it  to  extremes  :  they 
would,  therefore,  make  a  militia  system  burdensome,  unwieldy, 
and  corrupt,  a  standing  army  for  faction,  distinguished  by  a 
strange  badge,  and  arrayed  against  the  government. 

IT  is  indeed  probable,  that  these  wild  theories  have  never 
yet  much  disturbed  the  world  by  addling  the  brains  of  any 
man  who  had  its  business  to  do.  Such  political  sophists,  till 
lately,  have  been  calmly  despised,  but  never  trusted  with 
power.  Into  the  hands  of  such  children  it  has  never  before 
been  thought  prudent  to  put  knives. 

IF,  to  punish  the  manifold  sins  of  this  nation,  God's  displea 
sure  dooms  it  to  be  delivered  over  to  projectors  and  philoso- 
phists,  the  first  of  the  sort  who  ever  had  the  chance  to  play 
the  statesman,  will  they  have  the  temerity  ta  undertake,  and 
will  they  accomplish  their  plans  ? 

IN  free  states,  so  long  as  they  preserve  their  laws  and  their 
tranquillity,  the  publick  opinion  is  the  efficient  ruler.  In  times 
of  convulsion,  it  is  jirobably  less  regarded  in  such  states  than 
under  a  desfiotis?n,  because  it  can  be  counterfeited  better.  Suppose 
Mr.  Jefferson  should  come  into  office  :  with  all  his  refinements, 
he  is  reputed  a  man  of  genius.  His  experience  and  caution, 
we  hope,  will  forbid  his  pushing  schemes  against  the  clear 
sense  of  the  people,  or  even  of  a  very  large  part  of  them.  If  the 
reionners  should  cry,  perish  commerce,  fisheries,  and  naviga- 


142  FALKLAND. 

tion,  live  and  prosper  agriculture,  yet  the  conception  of  this 
precious  project  would  be  found  easier  than  its  execution. 
Reformers  make  nothing  of  old  establishments,  of  interests 
that  have  taken  root  for  ages,  and  of  prejudices,  habits,  and 
relations,  rather  less  ancient  and  rather  more  stubborn  than 
they. 

NEW-ENGLAND  now  contains  a  million  and  a  half  of  inhabi 
tants,  of  all  colonies  that  ever  were  founded  the  largest,  the 
most  assimilated,  and,  to  use  the  modern  jargon,  nationalized^ 
the  most  respectable  and  prosperous,  the  most  truly  interest 
ing  to  America  and  to  humanity,  more  unlike  and  more  supe- 
riour  to  other  people,  (the  English  excepted)  than  the  old 
Roman  race  to  their  neighbours  and  competitors.  This  peo 
ple,  whose  spirit  is  as  lofty  as  their  destiny,  is  settled  on  an 
extensive  coast,  and,  by  situation  and  character,  has  a  greater 
proportion  of  its  inhabitants  engaged  in  navigation  and  mari 
time  affairs  than  France  or  England,  perhaps  than  even  Holland. 
In  spirit  and  enterprise  no  nation  exceeds  them.  It  is  in  vain 
to  say,  things  ought  not  to  have  been  so,  it  would  have  been 
better  to  have  had  half  as  many  farmers.  It  is  absurd  to  say 
any  such  thing. 

THE  question  for  anew  administration  is  not,  what  ought  to 
have  been  preferred  three  ages  ago,  but  what  must  now  be 
destroyed.  These  great  interests  are  too  precious  to  be  sacri 
ficed,  they  are  too  powerful  even  to  be  neglected.  They  will 
demand,  and  well  they  may,  the  effectual,  zealous,  assiduous 
protection  and  fostering  care  of  government ;  and  no  president 
will  ever  repel  the  claim  with  defiance  or  contempt.  Protec 
tion  will  be  promised,  and,  perhaps,  with  the  design  to  afford  it. 

IT  is  right  for  the  publick  to  suppose,  that  Mr.  Jefferson's 
administration  must  be  tried  before  it  can  be  known.  It  is  fair 
and  candid  to  make  every  presumption  in  favour  of  his  inten 
tions,  that  may  not  be  discredited  by  his  conduct.  It  is,  however, 
an  effort  of  candour,  but  we  must  make  it,  to  allow,  that,  like 
most  men  of  genius,  he  has  been  carried  away  by  systems, 
and  the  everlasting  zeal  to  generalize,  instead  of  proceeding, 
like  common  men  of  practical  sense,  on  the  low,  but  sure 


FALKLAND.  145 

foundation  of  matter  of  fact.  It  is  the  forte,  and  it  is  also  the 
foible  of  genius,  to  be  under  the  dominion  of  tiie  imagination  ; 
and  such  men  often  judge  of  a  law  as  they  would  ot  a  picture, 
by  the  rules  of  taste.  They  can  decide  in  such  a  case  only  as 
the  mob  do,  by  acclamation.  What  ought  to  be  the  result  of 
experience,  that  a  blockhead  could  both  feel  and  express,  is 
comprehended  in  the  province  of  sentiment ;  and,  for  the  curse 
and  confusion  of  a  state,  the  plodding  business  of  politicks 
becomes  one  of  the  fine  arts.  The  statesman  is  bewildered 
with  his  own  peculiar  fanaticism :  he  sees  the  stars  near,  but 
loses  sight  of  the  earth  :  he  sails  in  his  balloon  into  clouds  and 
thick  vapours,  above  his  business  and  his  duties,  and  if  he 
sometimes  catches  a  glimpse  of  the  wide  world,  it  seems  flat 
tened  to  a  plain,  and  shrunk  in  all  its  proportions  ;  therefore  he 
strains  his  opticks  to  look  beyond  its  circumference,  and  con 
templates  invisibility,  till  he  thinks  nothing  else  is  real.  New 
worlds  of  metaphysicks  issue  from  his  teeming  brain,  and 
whirl  in  orbits  more  elliptick  than  the  comets.  Man  rises 
from  the  mire,  into  which  aristocracy  has  trodden  him,  shakes 
off  the  sleep  of  ignorance  and  the  fetters  of  the  law,  a  gorgeous 
new  being,  invested  with  perfectibility,  a  saint  in  purity,  a 
giant  in  intellect,  and  goes  to  inhabit  these  worlds.  Condorcet 
and  Roland,  and  men  like  them,  will  be  there,  and  Paine,  and 
Duane,  and  Marat,  and  Burroughs.  There  virtue  will  cele 
brate  her  triumphs ;  there  patriotism  will  be  inebriated  with 
the  ecstacy  of  her  fellowships. 

I  KNOW  as  little  of  the  political  illuminists  as  of  the  sect  of 
the  Swedenborgians ;  but  to  me  it  has  ever  appeared,  that  the 
former  are  a  new  sect  of  fanaticks.  They  manifest  a  strange 
heat  in  the  heart,  but  no  light  in  the  brain,  unless  it  be  a  fee 
ble  light,  whose  rays  are  gathered  in  the  lens  of  philosophy, 
to  kindle  every  thing  in  the  state,  that  is  combustible,  into  a 
blaze.  A  statesman  of  this  sect  will  poise  himself  in  his  chair, 
like  an  alchymist  in  his  laboratory,  pale  with  study,  his  fin 
gers  sooty  with  experiments,  eager  to  make  fuel  of  every  thing 
that  is  precious,  and  sanguinely  expecting  that  he  shall  extract 


144  FALKLAND. 

every  thing  precious  from  the  cinders  and  dross  that  must  be 
thrown  away. 

YET  if  we  ascribe  to  Mr.  Jefferson  these  vagaries,  so  dear 
if  they  happen  to  be  his  own,  so  confidently  trusted  because 
they  have  not  been  tried,  it  is  natural  enough  to  expect,  that, 
nevertheless,  he  will  desist  from  his  experiments  as  soon  as 
the  results  become  too  complicated  and  too  uncertain  for  the 
satisfaction  of  a  philosopher.  He  may  think  it  prudent  to 
wait  till  the  world  is  more  enlightened,  before  he  prosecutes 
his  schemes  to  hasten  the  progress  of  its  absolute  perfectibi 
lity.  He  will  stoop  to  the  prejudice  that  will  not  rise  with  him, 
The  family  of  labour,  brown  with  West-India  suns,  or  glisten 
ing  and  rancid  with  whale  oil,  will  tell  him,  that  they  had 
rather  tread  a  ship's  deck  than  the  wilderness,  and  prefer  the 
conflict  with  the  storms  of  Spitzbergen,  and  the  chace  of  the 
spermaceti,  where  there  is  danger  and  glory,  and  associates  to 
share  the  one  and  to  bestow  the  other,  to  scalping  Indians, 
or  skinning  otters,  in  roaming  over  an  immeasurable  waste, 
where  the  silence  is  broken  only  by  the  howlings  of  the  famish 
ed  wolves,  and  where  the  sight,  even  of  these  animals  is  less 
dreaded  and  less  dangerous  than  that  of  their  fellows.  They 
will  tell  him,  they  cannot  change  their  element,  nor  will  they 
submit,  when  politicians,  with  hearts  colder  than  that  element 
at  the  pole,  prove,  en  calculation,  it  is  best  that  they  should 
perish  in  it. 


FALKLAND.  N°.  III. 
TO    NEW-ENGLAND    MEN. 

THE  project  of  transmuting  the  classes  of  American  citi 
zens,  and  con  veiling  sailors  into  back- woods -men,  is  not  too 
monstrous  for  speculatists  to  conceive  and  to  desire  ;  but  it  is  to© 
vast  for  such  men,  and  especially  in  four  years,  to  accomplish. 
They  are  not  of  the  race  of  the  Titans.  They  cannot  pluck  up 


FALKLAND.  145 

the  iron-bound  shores,  with  all  their  towns,  and  plant  them  on 
the  Miami ;  and  as  long  as  the  sea  washes  these  shores,  our 
citizens  will  be  navigators,  and  will  claim  protection  in  a  tone 
that  will  not  be  soothed  by  the  answer,  that  a  navy  is  expen 
sive,  or  that  the  wilderness  stretches  out  its  welcome  arms  to 
receive  them.  They  will  reply,  so  does  death  its  more  wel 
come  arms. 

THE  maritime  interest  of  New-England  is  very  essential  to 
the  existence  of  every  other.  If  it  really  is  not,  it  is  pretty 
extensively  believed  to  be,  the  root  of  our  prosperity.  Laying, 
or  threatening  to  lay  the  axe  to  that  root,  would  excite  such 
an  opposition  as  would  deter  the  most  vigorous  despotism 
from  its  purpose. 

IN  prosperous  times,  when  men  feel  the  greatest  ardour  in 
their  pursuits  of  gain,  they  manifest  the  most  callous  apathy 
to  politicks.  Those  who  possess  nothing,  and  have  nothing 
to  do  but  to  manage  the  intrigues  of  elections,  will  prevail 
against  five  times  their  number  of  men  of  business.  Each 
description  is  actuated  by  strong  passions,  moving  in  different, 
but  not  opposite  directions.  When,  however,  some  of  the 
great  interests  of  society  are  invaded,  those  passions  change 
their  direction  and  are  quickened  in  it.  They  are  then  capa 
ble  of  defending  themselves  with  all  the  vivacity  of  the  spirit 
of  gain  and  of  enterprise,  with  all  the  energies  of  vengeance 
and  despair.  These,  it  must  be  confessed,  are  revolutionary 
resources,  for  the  defence  of  property  and  right,  which  can 
not  and  ought  not  to  be  called  forth  on  ordinary  occasions. 
The  classes  in  question  will  be  long  in  danger,  before  they  will 
be  in  fear,  and  if  their  adversary  forbears  to  push  the  attack 
in  so  rude  a  manner  as  to  make  that  fear  overpower  all  other 
emotions,  he  may  proceed,  unsuspected  and  unopposed.  They 
will  be  as  much  engrossed  with  their  business,  as  the  political 
projectors  with  their  plans  of  reforming,  till  they  destroy  it. 
It  is  probable,  therefore,  that  the  maritime  interest  of  the 
Eastern  states  is  scarcely  yet  beginning  to  suffer  apprehension, 
or  to  think  of  measures  of  precaution.  It  will  seem  incredi 
ble  to  the  concerned,  that  interests  so  precious  should  appear 
19 


146  FALKLAND. 

of  small  value  even  to  illuminists  and  reformers.  They  will 
not  believe  that  the  jacobin  Catalines  could  be  vile  or  daring 
enough  to  assail  them.  They  will  say,  supposing  the  new 
president  to  be  fond  of  power,  it  cannot  be  the  interest  of  his 
ambition  to  prosecute  the  attack,  as  it  would  expose  his  four 
years  administration  to  the  most  dreadful  agitations,  and  ani 
mate  against  himself,  personally,  enemies  by  classes  and  hosts, 
whom  he  could  not  expect  ever  to  pacify,  nor  always  to  over 
power.  They  will,  therefore,  feel  a  sanguine  confidence,  that 
banks  and  debts,  publick  and  private,  manufactures,  navigation, 
and  the  fisheries  will  be  sure  of  tranquillity,  and  almost  sure  of 
patronage.  It  would  extend  these  pages  too  far  to  examine  in 
detail  the  grounds  of  this  confidence.  It  will  be  sufficient, 
briefly  to  observe,  that  it  may  be  true,  and  perhaps  it  is,  as  the 
democrats  pledged  themselves  for  the  event,  that  the  new  pre 
sident  will  be  averse  from  violent  counsels,  that  he  is  so  from 
principle,  character,  and  policy,  and  that  the  new  men  will  pur 
sue  the  old  measures.  Yet  it  ought  to  be  remembered  that 
the  head  of  the  party  cannot  wholly  reject,  nor,  perhaps,  very 
materially  alter,  the  system  prescribed  to  him  by  his  political 
supporters.  If  he  does,  he  will  be  a  federalist.  If  he  will  sup 
port  principles,  they  will  not  oppose  him  :  they  will  not,  like 
the  jacobins,  oppose  for  opposition  sake.  But  to  gain  their 
confidence,  he  must  give  them  the  evidence  of  facts:  he 
must  act  right.  For  confidence  grows,  if  at  all,  without  arti 
ficial  culture  ;  it  will  not  bear  the  forcing  of  a  hot-house.  Like 
a  shrub  on  the  high  peak  of  a  mountain,  where  it  seldom  rains, 
it  absorbs  the  dew,  and  though  it  grows  not  much  in  a  year, 
and  is  never  lofty,  its  roots  striking  deeper  than  its  top  branches, 
yet  it  grows  for  an  age,  and  braves  the  tempests ;  while  the 
weeds  of  popularity  have  tall,  weak  stems,  from  the  rankness 
of  their  growth,  and  perish  on  the  dunghills  that  they  sprout 
from.  i 

IF  he  should  cling  with  fond  zeal  to  the  schemes  of  his  old 
filends,  the  president  will  be  strongly  impelled  by  the  party 
current,  and  if  he  yields  to  it,  he  will  soon  cease  to  be  their 
leader  and  become  their  instrument.  Indeed  there  are  but 


FALKLAND  147 

two  divisions  of  party  in  the  United  States,  and  he  is  a  very 
weak  or  very  presumptuously  vain  man,  who  can  think  of 
organizing  a  third  party,  that  shall  rule  them  both.  Those 
who  possess  property,  who  enjoy  rights,  and  who  reverence 
the  laws  as  the  guardians  of  both,  naturally  think  it  important, 
and  what  is  better,  feel  the  necessity  of  sustaining  the  control- 
ing  and  restraining  power  of  the  state :  in  other  words,  their 
interests  and  wishes  are  on  the  side  of  justice,  because  justice 
will  secure  to  every  man  his  own.  This  is  federalism.  On 
the  other  hand,  those  who  do  not  know  what  right  is,  or  if  they 
do,  despise  it ;  who  have  no  interest  in  justice,  because  they 
have  little  for  it  to  secure,  and  that  little,  perhaps,  its  impartial 
severity  would  transfer  to  creditors ;  who  see  in  the  mild  aspect 
of  our  government  a  despot's  frown,  and  a  dagger  in  its  hand, 
while  it  scatters  blessings ;  who  consider  government  as  an 
impediment  to  liberty,  and  the  stronger  the  government,  the 
stronger  the  impediment ;  that  it  is  patriotism,  virtue,  heroism 
to  surmount  it ;  that  liberty  is  to  be  desired  for  its  abstract 
excellence,  rather  than  its  practical  benefits,  and,  therefore, 
that  it  is  better  to  run  the  hazard  of  the  greatest  possible 
degree  of  a  perishable  liberty,  rather  than  to  accept  it  with 
those  guards  and  defences,  which  to  insane  theorists  seem  to 
make  it  less,  but  which,  on  the  just  analogies  of  experience, 
promise  to  make  it  immortal ;  those,  in  a  word,  who  look  on 
government  with  fear  and  aversion,  on  the  relaxation  or  sub 
version  of  it%  with  complacency  and  hope ;  all  who  from  cre 
dulity,  envy,  anger,  and  pride,  from  ambition  or  cupidity,  are 
impatient  under  the  restraints,  or  eager  for  the  trappings  of 
power. 

ALL  such  reason,  when  they  can,  and  act,  and  feel  in  a  man 
ner  unfavourable  to  the  support  of  the  constitution  and  laws. 
Their  opinions  and  creeds  are  various,  and  many  of  them  are 
plausible,  and  seem  to  be  moderate.  It  is  probable  they  would 
all,  except  the  leaders,  at  present  incline  to  stop  short  of  the 
extremes,  to  which  the  first  steps  are  not  perceived  to  tend, 
but  which,  when  they  are  taken,  are  inevitable.  They  are 
impelled  by  a  common  instinct?  as  blind  as  it  is  steady  and 


148  FALKLANB. 

powerful  in  its  action.  They  are,  by  nature,  instinct,  habit, 
and  inteiest.  opposers  of  the  government.  They  consist  of 
foui  classes,  antifecleralists,  democrats,  anarchists,  and  jaco 
bins,  exceedingly  unlike  in  character  and  in  views,  yet,  while 
they  are  all  out  of  power,  harmoniously  concurring  to  promote 
the  common  cause :  once  in  power,  it  is  probable  they  would 
disagree.  There  can,  of  course,  exist  but  two  political  divi 
sions  in  the  countiy  ;  to  helpy  or  to  hinder  the  administration 
of  its  government.  This  description  is  so  comprehensive  as 
to  embrace  all  the  active  citizens,  and  leaves,  for  the  formation 
of  a  third  party,  neither  materials,  artificers,  nor  object. 

SOME  very  vain  and  some  weak  men,  and  some  very  great 
hypocrites,  pretend  to  be  of  no  party  :  while  they  arrogate  to 
themselves  a  discernment  superiour  to  both  parties,  they  affect 
to  be  neutral  and  undecided  between  them.  They  claim  the 
title  of  the  truest  patriots,  and  to  love  their  countiy  with  the 
ardour  of  passion,  yet  they  inconsistently  condemn  the  vio 
lence  of  both  parties,  and  expect  to  have  both  believe  that  the 
fire  of  their  zeal  subsists  pure  and  unexpended  in  the  frost  of 
moderation.  Such  men  are  often  flattered  as  federalists,  more 
often  used  as  democrats,  but  always  held  in  a  contempt  that  is 
never  more  hearty  than  when  it  is  discreetly  suppressed. 

WHOEVER  is  president  will  have  too  much  sense  to  denounce 
both  parties,  and  to  think  of  poising  his  weight  exactly  between 
two  supports,  but  resting  upon  neither.  We  know  already, 
that  this  policy,  if  it  may  be  called  such,  will  not  be  adopted 
by  either  of  the  two  successful  candidates.  He  will  shape  his 
system  according  to  the  federal  or  democratick  plan  ;  he  will 
adhere  either  to  the  restraining  doctrines,  or  to  those  which 
counteract  restraint :  he  must  either  serve  God  or  Mammon. 
The  Washington  and  Adams  administration  proceeded  on  the 
basis,  that  the  government  was  organized,  and  clothed  with 
power  to  rule  according  to  the  constitution  ;  the  democratick 
theorists  insist,  that  the  people,  meaning  themselves,  have  a 
good  right  to  rule  the  government. 

BY  exciting  the  people  to  govern  or  to  oppose  government, 
these  leaders  well  know,  that  those  who  are  thus  irregularly 


FALKLAND.  149 

permitted  to  act  in  their  behalf,  will  engross  all  their  power. 
Against  this  natural  propensity  to  faction,  a  regular  and  vigor 
ous  government  is  the  proper  and  only  adequate  security. 
Of  course,  for  that  very  reason,  such  a  government  will  be 
hateful  to  faction,  and  will  be,  if  possible,  usurped  and  destroy 
ed  by  it.  For  such  usurpation  the  nature  of  liberty  excites 
the  desire,  and  affords  the  pretext  and  the  means. 

ACCORDINGLY,  we  have  seen  a  faction,  bitter  against  the 
constitution  in  its  passage,  against  the  government  in  its  ad 
ministering  the  laws,  and  the  magistrates  and  officers  intrusted 
with  the  execution  of  them.  They  have  struggled  for  the 
mastery,  and  after  a  persevering  effort  for  twelve  years,  they 
have  succeeded  in  the  late  great  election.  Will  this  party 
acquiesce,  if  the  mere  change  of  men  should  be  the  only  fruit 
of  their  victory  ?  No,  the  nature  of  faction  itself,  our  observa 
tion  of  jacobinism  in  France,  our  knowledge  of  jacobin  charac 
ters  at  home,  forbid  the  idea.  They  will  be  greater  malecon- 
tents  than  ever,  if  new  men  should  pursue  old  measures.  Few 
can  be  so  absurd  as  to  expect  office ;  multitudes  do  expect  a 
political  millenium.  Taxes  are  to  be  abolished :  the  occa 
sions  for  taxes  are  to  be  for  ever  removed:  armies  are  to 
be  no  more  raised :  navies  will  be  reduced,  reduced  as  soon  as 
it  can  be  made  tolerably  safe  and  popular,  to  nothing :  interest 
on  the  publick  debt  is  to  be  reduced  gradually,  but  at  the 
pleasure  of  those  who  think  the  principal  a  fraud  and  a  curse, 
an  avenging  devil  and  a  tempter.  Hopes,  like  these,  are  to  be 
disappointed  or  gratified.  The  president  will  know,  that 'it  is 
impossible  to  do  all  that  is  expected,  but  he  will  readily  un 
dertake  to  do  something,  that  every  thing  may  not  be  required- 
of  him.  He  will  recommend  economy,  and  profess  the  pro- 
foundest  reverence  for  the  sense  of  the  people,  which  the  united 
Irishmen  will  of  course  apply  to  themselves.  He  will  keep  in 
office  such  federalists  as  are  willing  to  stay,  and  lend  a  prisma- 
tick  light  of  contrasted  colours  to  his  administration.  He  will 
appoint  a  Livingston  and  a  Gallatin  to  office. 

HE  will  lavish  his  smiles  on  federalists,  and  his  confidence 
on  two  or  three  select  democrats,  and  will  be  very  glad,  per- 


150  FALKLAND, 

haps,  to  get  on  his  four  years  political  journey  in  this  seem 
ingly  equivocal  manner  as  a  president, 

Placed  on  the  isthmus  of  a  middle  state, 
A  being1  darkly  wise  and  rudely  great. 

BUT  if  this  would  do  for  him,  it  would  not  answer  for  his 
party :  they  will  expect  much  and  attempt  every  thing. 


FALKLAND    N°.  IV. 
TO  NEW-ENGLAND  MEN. 

TO  abolish  the  funding  system  is  neither  necessary  nor 
decorous.  But  there  are  as  many  ways  to  slay  this  enemy,  as 
to  destroy  human  life ;  by  violence,  by  poison,  by  neglect.  By 
violence  the  interest  may  be  reduced ;  by  taxing  the  holders 
of  publick  debt  as  much  may  be  drawn  back  in  taxes,  as  is 
paid  in  name  of  interest:  this  is  poison.  Or  the  laws  for 
enforcing  the  revenue  and  carrying  into  effect  the  engagements 
of  the  government  may  be  delayed,  and  finally  not  passed.  The 
Gallatin  doctrine  in  regard  to  treaty  appropriations  furnishes 
theory  enough  for  all  the  paper  money  iniquity,  that  ever  was 
practised  or  imagined.  The  children  of  the  publick  faith  may 
come  to  a  democratick  government,  and  say,  in  the  name  of 
justice  and  plighted  honour,  give  us  bread ;  and  such  a  govern 
ment  may  say,  as  the  state  government  of  Rhode-Island  have 
heretofore  said  of  their  war  debts,  take  your  bread)  offering  a 
stone. 

THE  new  president  will  have  a  part  of  no  common  difficulty 
to  act.  He  will  desire  to  conciliate  the  federalists,  and  with 
out  respecting  their  systems,  might  be  willing  to  let  them 
alone.  The  democrats  really  wish  to  see  an  impossible  ex 
periment  fairly  tried,  and  to  govern  without  government.  It 
is  to  be  expected,  that  they  will  applaud  their  chief,  who  is 
believed  to  be  their  true  disciple,  if  he  should  take  a  fancy  to 
try  it. 


FALKLAND.  1$1 

THEY  consider  government  as  a  strange  sort  of  self-moving 
mill,  or  a  ship,  that,  while  it  is  acted  upon  by  one  element, 
goes  the  better  for  the  resistance  of  another.  It  is  an  even 
chance,  therefore,  that  they  may  deem  the  opposition  of  the 
federalists  as  harmless  and  even  as  salutary  as  their  own.  In 
pursuance  of  their  plan,  they  will  let  the  government  alone  to 
go  by  its  own  inscrutable  momentum.  They  will,  as  hereto 
fore,  deem  it  proper  to  be  lookers  on,  not  co-operators,  unless 
when  it  shall  want  either  force  or  treasure,  or  even  counte 
nance  and  approbation  ;  and  then  they  will  summon  each  other 
to  their  old  post  of  opposition.  Treasure  corrupts,  and  force 
oppresses,  and,  therefore,  government  shall  have  neither.  The 
immediate  evfl  to  be  apprehended  to  our  government,  is  the 
denial  of  its  daily  bread ;  that  sort  of  consumption  which  preys 
on  the  balsamick  parts  of  the  blood,  and  leaves  a  residuum  of 
vitriol.  The  body  politick,  though  bloated  with  a  shew  of 
health  while  it  perishes,  and  alive  with  double-concocted  poi 
sons,  will  shed  a  corroding  and  mortal  venom  on  all  it  touches. 
The  laws  will  be  jacobin ;  for  as  soon  as  the  democrats  have 
wasted  their  first  energies,  and  their  system  falls  into  decrepi 
tude,  (and  a  year  of  democratick  government  is  old  age)  they 
will  crowd  themselves  into  power.  They  are  a  race  distinct 
from  the  democrats,  and  as  much  worse  in  their  designs,  as 
the  independents,  in  Oliver  Cromwell's  time,  than  the  presby- 
terians. 

THEN  expect  amendments,  that  will  make  the  constitution 
a  confederation.  Then  expect  commercial  regulations,  which 
will  profess  to  cramp  British  commerce,  and  will  cramp  our 
own.  First  revenue,  wealth,  and  credit  will  take  flight ;  then 
peace. 

THE  danger,  therefore,  to  all  the  interests  and  institutions  of 
New-England,  is  not  so  much  to  be  ascribed  to  the  character 
or  designs  of  the  new  president,  whoever  he  may  be,  or  to  be 
feared  in  the  first  year  of  the  new  administration,  as  from  the 
progress  of  time,  and  the  natural  developments  of  faction. 
There  is  universally  a  presumption  in  democracy  that  promises 


152  FALKLAND. 

every  thing;  and  at  the  same  time  an  imbecility  that  can 
accomplish  nothing,  nor  even  preserve  itself. 

THERE  is  in  jacobinism  all  the  vigour,  audacity,  and  intel 
ligence  requisite  to  take  advantage  of  this  state  of  things.  The 
democrats  will  be  their  journeymen  to  do  the  work,  while  they 
claim  the  wages ;  the  pioneers,  who  will  clear  the  way  for  the 
procession  of  the  jacobin  triumph.  The  jacobins  and  demo 
crats  are,  in  fact,  less  agreed  in  their  objects  and  principles, 
though  these  latter  do  not  know  it,  than  the  federalists  and  the 
democrats. 

IT  would  be  improper  as  well  as  tedious  to  pursue,  in  a 
newspaper  essay,  all  the  illustrations  and  details,  that  these 
observations  may  seem  to  require.  They  are  not,  however,  so 
much  addressed  to  men  who  are  no  federalists,  but  who  might 
be  convinced  to  become  such,  nor  to  men  who  already  wish 
well  to  the  good  old  cause  of  order,  law,  and  liberty,  yet  who 
are  wreak  enough  to  think  it  will  be  safe  in  jacobin  hands,  as 
to  the  old  federalists,  the  true  and  intelligent,  who  rightly 
conclude,  that,  if  our  excellent  government,  in  this  the  day  of 
its  humiliation  and  imminent  peril,  is  to  be  saved,  it  must  be 
by  the  correctness  of  the  publick  opinion  and  the  energy  of 
the  publick  spiiit  that  is  to  impress  it. 

THIS  is  no  day  for  despondency,  or  servility,  or  trimming. 
It  is  as  little  to  the  purpose,  to  trust  implicitly  to  the  modera 
tion  of  a  jacobin  administration,  or  to  those  smooth  professions, 
with  which  it  will  attempt  in  the  beginning  to  make  the  feder 
alists  supine  or  treacherous  in  the  cause,  to  make  them  cold  in 
its  defence,  or  go  over  to  the  enemy. 

THAT  cause,  though  endangered,  is  not  desperate.  The 
jacobins  have  pretended,  that  the  people  approve  their  designs ; 
but  their  partial  success  has  been  owing  to  the  concealment  of 
those  designs.  They  have  played  the  part  of  hypocrisy  with 
an  audacity  of  impudence  that  is  unparalleled :  they  have  af 
fected  to  be  federalists,  republicans,  friends,  admirers,  and 
champions  of  the  constitution  :  they  have  recommended  jaco 
bin  members  of  congress,  as  better  watchmen  for  it  than  its 
known  friends  :  they  have  assured  us,  that  Mr,  Jefferson  will 


FALKLAND.  153 

not  subvert  or  neglect  to  preserve  those  institutions  and  in 
terests,  which  he  is  known,  and,  it  is  believed,  well-known  to 
condemn  and  abhor  as  much  as  his  adherents.  These  protes 
tations  have  had  effect,  and  jacobins  have  been  preferred,  not 
because  they  were  such,  but  because  it  was  believed,  that  they 
were  what  they  pretended  to  be.  The  wolves  in  sheep's 
clothing  have  not  yet  been  stripped :  they  are  in  the  sheep- 
fold. 

LET  them  not,  however,  imagine,  that  the  people,  especially 
of  the  Eastern  states,  are  ready  to  co-operate  in  the  work  of 
jacobinism.  If,  after  having  with  some  success  deceived  the 
people,  they  should  become  such  dupes  as  to  act  on  the  credit 
of  their  own  tales,  let  them  beware.  They  will  find  it  is  easier 
to  deceive  a  high-spirited  people,  than  to  enslave  them,  and 
safer  to  insult  them  by  the  imputation  of  political  principles 
that  they  abhor,  than  to  plunder  and  beggar  them  by  carrying 
such  principles  into  effect. 


•[    154    J 

THE  OBSERVER. 

First  published  in  the  Palladium^  February,  1801. 

1  H  E  French  revolution  is  a  sort  of  experimental  political 
philosophy,  in  which  many  foolish  opinions  are  tried  and  found 
wanting.  The  jacobins  are,  however,  like  quacks,  who  recom 
mend  their  patent  medicines.  Experience  has  no  effect  on 
them  to  cure  their  delusion.  They  say,  their  elixir  of  immor 
tality  has  not  yet  been  fairly  tried,  and  that  some  aristocratick 
patients  stopped  breathing  only  to  effect  the  disgrace  of  their 
nostrums.  They  would  give  a  whole  nation  a  quietus  at  once, 
if  they  could  only  persuade  them  to  swallow  some  liquor  of 
long  life,  some  restorative  pill,  or  some  powder,  that  is  to 
sweeten  the  blood.  Accordingly,  the  jacobin  papers  even  yet 
manifest,  how  little  they  learn  from  the  direful  experience  of 
France  ;  for  even  yet  they  dare  to  call  the  success  of  French 
arms,  the  cause  of  liberty  and  republicanism.  Whether  we 
have  any  fools  left,  who  still  flounder  in  this  confusion  of  mind, 
is  more  than  I  know  ;  but  many  jacobins,  it  is  certJ.n,  still 
claim  credit  for  their  sincerity  to  that  amazing  extent  of  infatu 
ation. 

FRANCE  is  the  only  state  in  Europe  completely  military : 
they  are  now  what  the  Turks  lately  were,  all  soldiers,  or  all 
liable  to  be  made  soldiers.  Their  spirits  have  been  wrought 
up  by  eight  years  of  war,  by  revolution,  and  by  the  excesses 
of  what  our  mobocrats  call  liberty,  into  a  ferment,  equal  to 
that  of  the  ancient  crusaders.  No  state  could  be  safe,  while 
France  had  the  power  to  disturb  them  ;  and  every  state  that 
thought  itself  safe  in  inaction  has  fallen :  the  only  powers 
that  yet  stand,  are  those  that  resisted  with  courage.  France 
has  not  changed  ;  the  danger  to  other  nations  is  not  less,  and 
the  only  path  to  safety  is  thorny  and  perilous :  it  is  to  be 
trodden  in  arms.  Mithridates,  Antiochus,  Perseus,  the  Eto- 
lian  and  Achaean  leagues  were  successively  lost,  either  by 
seeking  an  alliance  with  ancient  Rome,  or  by  neglecting  the 


THE  OBSERVER.  155 

obvious  policy  of  confederating  with  other  states  in  like  peril : 
Perseus  allied  with  Antiochus,  or  Mithridates  with  Sertorius, 
might  have  saved  the  world  from  servitude.  France  now 
claims  empire,  and  will  not  hear  rivalship.  Austria  and  Eng 
land  can  have  no  peace  :  they  will  fail,  unless  their  arms  should 
so  far  cripple  their  foe,  as  to  disable  him  from  prosecuting 
his  scheme  of  universal  dominion.  France  is  as  revolutionary 
as  ever  :  Buonaparte  keeps  down  jacobinism  at  home,  but  it 
deeply  concerns  him  to  stir  it  up  in  every  other  state,  where 
French  influence  is  wanted.  Jacobinism  is,  therefore,  more 
than  ever  to  be  dreaded  by  England  and  Austria,  because  its 
operations  in  France  are  more  artfully  disguised  by  the  govern 
ment.  It  is  more  than  ever  to  be  dreaded  in  America,  because 
the  moment  approaches,  when  its  success  can  be  turned  to 
immediate  account.  What  event  could  ever  happen  more 
auspicious  to  her  views,  than  to  have  an  administration  that 
would  bend  the  laws  and  commercial  systems  of  this  country 
to  the  policy  of  that  ?  Mr.  Madison's  famous  commercial  reso 
lutions  were  grounded  on  the  idea  of  making  America  useful 
as  a  colony  to  France ;  not  how  we  should  make  our  trade  the 
most  useful  to  ourselves.  The  New-England  merchants  had 
sense  enough  to  understand  this  delusive,  this  disgraceful  poli 
cy,  and  spurned  at  it.  They  will  do  it  again,  if  it  should  be 
repeated.  We  are  still  wanted  by  France,  and  to  have  us-)  she 
must  spread  jacobinism.  It  might,  and  would  help  her  to 
rule  our  citizens,  though,  if  suffered  to  prevail  in  France,  it 
might  hinder  Buonaparte  from  quietly  ruling  Frenchmen  at 
home. 


Library 

'  Californi* 


SKETCHES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  EUROPE. 

N°.  I. 

First  published  in  the  Palladium,  March,  1801. 

A  H  E  policy  and  conduct  of  the  French,  since  the  commence 
ment  of  their  revolution,  exhibit  very  little  of  novelty,  except 
in  the  degrees  of  political  intrigue,  and  revolutionary  cruelty 
and  injustice.  Wrought  up  almost  to  a  state  of  phrenzy  by 
an  unexampled  combination  of  circumstances  and  events,  they 
have  applied  principles  and  adopted  practices  with  a  skill  and 
ardour,  which  have  hitherto  rendered  them  the  terrour  and 
scourge  of  Europe.  As  this  revolution  has,  at  different  peri 
ods,  involved  the  interests,  and  called  forth  the  exertions  of 
almost  all  the  European  powers,  it  will  be  necessary  to  look 
at  their  designs  and  relative  positions  at  its  commencement. 

A  SENSE  of  common  danger,  and  those  laws,  which,  in 
peace  and  war,  have  always  regulated  the  great  republick  of 
the  European  states,  impelled  them  to  check,  by  force  of 
arms,  the  progress  of  that  revolutionary  system,  which  was 
wasting  Erance  and  threatening  the  rest  of  Europe.  Accord 
ingly,  Prussia,  Austria,  Spain,  Holland,  and  England,  at  an 
eariy  period,  united  to  repress  the  spirit  of  jacobinism,  and,  by 
timely  and  vigorous  exertions,  hoped  to  obtain  security  to 
themselves,  and  restore  tranquillity  to  France.  But,  in  spite 
of  all  opposition,  her  armies  penetrated  into  Holland,  Germany, 
and  Italy.  In  the  management  of  this  war  France  has  imitat 
ed  the  policy  of  the  Romans,  in  detaching  members  of  con 
federacies  against  them,  from  their  alliance.  Sensible  that 
the  united  exertions  of  Europe  would  disable  them  from  pro 
pagating  their  principles  and  extending  their  territory,  they 
felt  the  necessity  of  separating  the  allied  powers  to  accomplish 
their  ambitious  projects.  Of  course,  jealousies  were  excited 
among  them,  separate  interests  were  brought  into  view,  the 
blind  pursuit  of  which  tended  to  ruin  the  common  cause  by 


SKETCHES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  EUROPE.  157 

diverting  the  collected  energies  of  the  coalition.  The  king  of 
Prussia,  jealous  of  the  house  of  Austria,  and  reluctant  to  con 
tribute  to  its  aggrandizement,  soon  entered  into  negotiations 
for  a  separate  peace,  and,  by  scrupulously  watching  the  inter 
nal  state  of  his  dominions,  and  maintaining  a  military  force 
ready  to  act  as  occasion  might  require,  has  ever  since  been 
able  to  support  his  authority  at  home,  and  hold  a  neutral  posi 
tion  in  the  midst  of  contending  nations.  HolLind,  spiritless 
and  p-inick-struck  at  the  successes  and  power  of  France,  yield 
ed,  with  a  feeble  struggle,  her  resources  and  liberties  into  the 
hands  of  French  robbers  and  tyrants,  who  have,  at  length, 
broken  her  ancient  spirit,  and  still  continue  to  drill  and  whip 
her  to  the  performance  of  the  most  humiliating  services  for 
the  great  nation.  Spain,  paralyzed  with  fear,  and  willing  to 
make  any  sacrifices  to  preserve  life,  broke  from  the  confede 
racy  in  defiance  of  the  most  solemn  treaties,  and,  like  Holland, 
submitted  herself  to  the  unqualified  disposal  of  FiYJice. 

BUT  here  it  may  be  asked,  why  have  the  French  permitted 
the  church  and  the  throne  to  rest  quietly  upon  their  ancient 
foundations  ?  The  destruction  of  kings  and  priests,  is  the  first 
article  in  the  revolutionary  code  :  why  then  have  they  not  plant 
ed  the  tree  of  liberty  in  Madrid,  and  proclaimed  the  downfal 
of  civil  and  ecclesiastical  tyranny  ?  Upon  the  ruin  of  these,  they 
have  founded  their  claim  to  superiour  light  and  wisdom.  In 
every  other  country,  where,  by  arts  and  arms,  they  have  obtain 
ed  a  permanent  footing,  existing  establishments  have  been  sub 
verted,  and  constitutions  made  after  the  newest  fashion  imposed 
upon  the  people,  for  which  nothing  has  been  demanded  but 
submission,  gratitude,  and  the  "  simple  tithe  of  all  they  had.'* 
Some  powerful  reasons,  therefore,  must  have  dictated  a  line 
of  policy  so  opposite  to  their  professions  and  feelings,  and  so 
different  from  that,  which,  in  other  countries,  they  have  inva 
riably  pursued.  It  is  not  probable,  that  the  French  were,  at 
any  time,  doubtful  of  success  in  an  enterprise  against  Spain 
and  Portugal.  An  army  of  thirty  thousand  men  was  drawn 
out,  and  a  general  appointed  to  lead  them  through  Spain  to 
the  heart  of  Portugal ;  but  motives  of  policy  checked  the  enter- 


158  SKETCHES  OF  THE 

prise,  and  led  France  to  employ  her  armies,  where  their  suc 
cesses  would  not  be  followed  by  equal  or  superiour  advantage 
to  her  enemies.  It  was  foreseen,  that  if  Spain  should  be  revo 
lutionized,  the  commerce  of  her  colonies  in  the  West-Indies 
and  upon  the  continent  would  greatly  increase  the  power  of 
England,  and  more  than. balance  the  accession  of  strength 
which  would  be  gained  from  the  plunder  of  Portugal.  Had 
the  project  for  breaking  up  the  ancient  establishments  of  Spain, 
and  weakening  the  allies  by  the  destruction  of  Portugal,  been 
carried  into  effect,  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  colonies  would 
have  thrown  off  their  dependence  upon  the  mother  countries, 
and  assumed  the  station  of  independent  states,  or  put  themselves 
under  the  protection  of  England  or  the  United  States.  In  eith 
er  case,  England  would  have  felt,  that  her  sinews  of  war  were 
made  stronger -,  and  her  ability  of  continuing  it  increased.  Such, 
then,  have  been  the  motives,  which,  while  they  have  deterred 
the  French  from  adding  Spain  and  Portugal  to  the  list  of  new 
republicks,  have  manifested  the  hollowness  of  their  professions, 
and  their  deep-laid  schemes  of  unlimited  domination. 

WHILE  the  French  were  hot  in  the  pursuit  of  conquest,  a 
grand  alliance,  in  which  the  Russian  emperour  was  to  put  forth 
his  energies,  was  formed  for  the  purpose  of  driving  the  French 
from  Italy  in  a  single  campaign,  and  of  carrying  the  war  into 
France.  It  is  probable,  that  the  emperour  Paul  engaged  with 
as  disinterested  views,  as  those  of  any  member  of  the  confede 
racy,  and  with  a  determination  to  restore  the  ancient  govern 
ment  of  France.  Suwarrow,  a  perfect  master  in  all  the  schemes 
and  artifices  of  war,  who  alone  knew  to  lead  Russian  troops  to 
victory,  was  entrusted  with  the  chief  command.  In  a  few 
•months  he  broke  the  force  of  the  French  in  Italy,  and  pro 
ceeded  to  the  conquest  of  Switzerland.  But  here  an  untoward 
combination  of  circumstances  defeated  his  designs,  and  com 
pelled  him  to  retreat.  The  Austrians  failed  in  the  execution 
of  that  part  of  the  plan  assigned  to  them ;  the  army  in  Swit 
zerland  under  the  command  of  Hotze  had  been  routed,  and 
Hotze  himself  killed,  by  the  unexpected  descent  of  the  army 
of  Lecourbe  and  Massena  from  the  Alps  ;  and  the  troops  of 


STATE  OP  EUROPE.  159 

Suwarrow,  exhausted  and  without  supplies,  were  obliged  to  saye 
themselves  by  flight.  Suwarrow  was  extremely  exasperated  at 
the  conduct  of  the  Austrians,  and,  although  the  Russians  co 
operated  with  the  English  in  an  unsuccessful  expedition  to 
Holland,  the  retreat  of  Suwarrow  from  Switzerland  seems  to 
have  been  the  first  step  towards  the  secession  of  Paul  from 
the  coalition.  Here  was  given  a  fair  opportunity  for  court  in 
trigue  to  interpose,  and  represent  the  partiality  of  the  English 
for  the  Austrians,  the  mercenary  views  of  the  house  of  Austria, 
manifested  in  a  disposition  to  make  no  sacrifice  of  private  inter 
ests  for  the  sake  of  the  common  cause.  Paul,  naturally  capricious, 
being  led  to  suspect  that  the  allies  meant  to  weaken  his  power 
by  employing  his  troops  as  mercenaries  against  France,  with 
drew  from  the  alliance  with  indignation.  At  this  time,  it  is 
probable  that  his  attention  was  diverted  with  the  idea  of  extend 
ing  his  dominions  in  Turkey. 

NOTWITHSTANDING  Austria  has  been  often  charged  with 
selfish  and  mercenary  views  in  the  conduct  of  the  war,  it  may 
be  doubted,  whether,  previous  to  the  secession  of  Paul,  she 
acted  inconsistent  with  the  best  interests  of  the  coalition.  Her 
taking  possession  of  the  reconquered  places  in  Italy  might  have 
been  with  the  view  of  throwing  into  them  such  forces,  as  would 
have  formed  a  barrier  -to  the  future  progress  of  the  French : 
in  themselves,  they  were  feeble  and  needed  protection,  and  the 
interests  of  the  alliance  probably  demanded,  that  they  should 
be  secured  from  the  grasp  of  their  enemies. 


SKETCHES  OF  THE  STATE  OF  EUROPE. 
N°.  II. 

THE  change  of  the  politicks  of  Russia,  is  one  of  the  chief 
facts  to  attract  attention.  Whether  this  change  originated 
from  mere  whim  and  fickleness  of  temper  of  the  emperour, 
or  from  deep  views  of  future  advantage  to  Russia,  we  know 
very  little,  and  the  little  that  we  do  know  affords  no  very  satis 
factory  ground  even  for  conjecture.  Politically  speaking. 


160  SKETCHES  OF  THE 

Russia,  as  a  member  of  the  European  state,  is  still  an  undis 
covered  country :  it  is  an  empire  so  vast,  so  new,  so  motley, 
and  so  barbarous,  it  is  such  a  Babel,  whose  tongues  are  yet  so 
confounded,  a  gigantick  infant,  that  changes  so  often  by  its 
growth,  and  so  much  oftener  by  its  caprice,  time  is  doing  so 
much,  and  accident  so  much  more,  to  give  it  a  determinate 
impression  and  character,  that  no  one  has  cause  to  be  ashamed 
of  his  ignorance  of  its  politicks.  It  is,  perhaps,  after  all  a 
question,  whether  Paul  is  not  as  rash  as  his  father,  Peter  the 
third,  in  his  conduct,  and  whether  a  revolution,  like  that  which 
dethroned  his  father  in  1762,  will  not  soon  happen. 

BE  that  as  it  may,  it  is  impossible  to  look  at  the  present 
position  of  the  great  European  powers  without  being  struck 
with  this  contrast:  in  1793,  alPwere  joined  with  Great  Britain 
in  opposition  to  France,  now  all  are  leagued  in  opposition  to 
Great  Britain.  Perhaps  it  will  be  seen  again,  that  a  single 
power  is  an  overmatch  for  a  confederacy. 

THE  pretexts  of  Russia,  to  justify  this  new  system,  are 
frivolous ;  for  the  British  dominion  of  the  seas  is  no  grievance 
to  Russia.  Sweden,  and  Denmark  are  mere  satellites,  and  act 
only  as  they  are  acted  upon.  Russia  has  no  commerce  to  be 
cramped  by  searches.  Its  industry  is  little,  its  trading  capital 
less,  and  its  mercantile  navigation  nothing.  Besides,  the  very- 
British  men  of  war,  that  thus  rule  the  seas,  are  furnished  with 
Russian  hemp,  and  cordage,  and  iron.  The  pretext,  therefore, 
amounts  to  nothing  more,  than  that  the  English  are  their  best 
customers  for  naval  stores.  Lazy  and  poor  nations  must  de 
pend  on  such  as  are  industrious  and  rich ;  but  it  is  absurd  to 
say  that  Russia  is  or  can  be  the  rival  of  England.  A  man 
barefoot  is  no  rival  of  the  shoemaker  ;  a  naked  man  in  a  cold 
climate  must  depend  on  the  woollen-draper.  Russia  sells  a 
superfluity,  that  it  cannot  use  nor  work  up,  and  that  nobody 
would  pay  for,  if  England  did  not.  Commercially  speaking, 
therefore,  it  seems  obvious  and  certain,  that  the  interests  of 
Russia  are  not  pursued  or  regarded  by  the  authors  of  the  war. 

BUT  great  nations  make  light  of  the  affair  of  gain  or  loss  in 
trade,  when  political  considerations  intervene ;  for  if  England 


STATE  OF  EUROPE.  I6i 

tlid  not  rule  the  ocean,  Russia  could  not :  it  would  be  France, 
the  little  finger  of  whose  despotism  would  be  found  thicker 
than  the  British  loins.  Russia  must  have  other  motives. 

TURKEY  has  been  long  a  defenceless  prey  to  any  of  the 
powerful  states,  and  would  long  ago  have  been  devoured,  if 
their  mutual  jealousy  had  not  delayed  her  fate.  There  has 
been  no  period,  since  the  Turks  took  Constantinople,  in  1453, 
when  it  was  so  easy  for  Russia  to  conquer  the  European  pro 
vinces  of  this  paralytick  empire.  The  rulers  of  France,  at  all 
other  times  interested  to  save  Turkey,  have  now  no  objects 
but  such  as  are  personal  and  temporary.  Buonaparte  would  be 
glad  to  say  to  Paul,  let  me  alone,  do  you  conquer  on  your  side, 
I  wish  to  meet  with  none  of  your  interruption  in  conquering 
on  mine.  France  is  at  war  with  Turkey,  and  ei.ger  to  esta 
blish  her  colony  in  Egypt,  Austria  is  beaten,  and  England  has 
her  hands  full ;  it  would  not  be  strange,  therefore,  if  Paul 
should  be  found  to  look  for  the  recompense  of  his  war  with 
England  in  the  conquest  of  the  Greek  provinces,  or  in  a  treaty 
with  the  Porte  that  would  assure  to  him  their  final  subjection. 
This  is  but  conjecture,  perhaps  not  plausible.  The  second 
son  of  the  emperour  Paul  is  named  Constantine,  and  was 
taught  Greek  to  gain  the  affections  of  his  intended  subjects : 
this  fact  has  long  been  well-known.  Europe  is  a  gaming  table, 
where  the  bets  are  often  shifted,  and  sometimes  the  players 
as  well  as  the  luck.  There  is  scarcely  any  thing  that  we  are 
not  to  expect  to  see  staked  by  the  gamesters ;  especially  as 
they  make  no  scruple,  as  in  the  case  of  Venice,  to  play  for 
what  is  none  of  their  own. 

IT  is  natural  to  ask,  whether  England  can  face  a  world  in 
arms.  That  armed  world  is  very  far  from  her  happy  island 
and  while  she  triumphs  on  the  seas,  they  must  keep  their 
distance.  Famine  might  enrage  her  labouring  people  and  con 
vulse  her  within  ;  but  the  government  is  active  in  its  measures 
to  prevent  that  evil.  The  contest  is,  therefore,  left  to  the  trial 
of  her  resources.  These  are  wonderful,  and  the  exclusive 
empire  and  commerce  of  the  seas  will  not  ultimately  lessen 
them.  It  is  a  splendid  lesson  to  America  of  the  energies  that 


162  SKETCHES  OF  THE 

industry,  and  such  a  government  aVwill  protect  its  earnings,- 
can  command.  Our  free  republican  government,  we  trust,  is 
such  a  government ;  and  we  hope  our  new  rulers  will  not  hate 
commerce,  as  a  New-England  gold  mine,  nor  check  it,  lest  the 
monied  interest,  as  the  democrats  call  the  proceeds  of  trade 
and  fisheries,  should  surpass  and  outweigh  the  landed  interest, 
as  they  call  the  tobacco  planters,  Goers  chosen  people^  if  ever 
he  had  a  chosen  jieofile. 

GREAT  events  are  to  be  looked  for,  and,  whatever  they  may 
be,  it  is  wise  policy  and  obvious  duty  for  our  government  to 
disentangle  our  politicks  from  France,  who  wants  to  use  our 
strength,  and  to  cherish  as  much  as  possible  the  commercial 
spirit  that  will  make  America  rich  by  industry,  and  thus  to  gain 
strength,  while  Europe  grows  poor  by  war.  Happy  shall  we 
be,  if,  while  we  gain  riches,  we  do  not  lose  our  spirit,  and  if 
peace  abroad  shall  not  embitter  dissentions  at  home. 

IN  this  momentous  contest  between  Great  Britain  and  the 
numerous  foes  who  have  joined  with  France  against  her,  it  is 
probable,  that  the  profits  of  our  commerce  will  be  enlarged, 
and  the  danger  of  our  being  forced  into  the  war  much  lessen 
ed.  If  Britain,  however,  should  be  very  unsuccessful,  we  might 
then  expect  France  would  a  second  time  require  us,  as  Genet 
did  before,  to  vindicate  our  neutral  rights  by  arms :  in  other 
v/ords,  to  fight  her  enemy  in  her  cause.  It  seems  to  be,  there 
fore,  as  clear  as  the  noonday  sun,  that  our  interest,  our  peace, 
and  our  commercial  liberty  require,  that  France  should  not,  by 
humbling  and  weakening  England,  be  able  to  take  the  high 
ground  to  command  America  to  join  her.  We  know,  that 
France  would  do  it  in  a  day,  if  she  had,  which,  thank  God ! 
she  has  not,  the  means  to  enforce  her  commands, 

IT  is  a  singular  proof  of  the  utter  want  of  all  patriotism  in 
the  violent  spirit  of  jacobinism,  that  the  Aurora  and  Chronicle 
are  incessantly  exhibiting  the  triumphs  of  France  as  the  se 
curity  of  America,  and  the  overthrow  of  the  British  dominion 
of  the  sea  as  our  triumph  and  final  emancipation.  This  is 
senseless  and  absurd  beyond  measure.  France  has  no  enemy 
that  can  face  her  at  land.  The  British  naval  power  is  a  conn- 


STATE  OF  EUROPE.  162 

terpoise.  Each  of  these  nations  is  thus  a  check  on  the  other, 
and  both  court  friends  among  the  powers  who  could  help  or 
hinder  their  operations.  Some  little  respect  is  thus  procured 
for  neutrality  ;  whereas,  if  England  were  beaten  at  sea  as 
completely  as  Austria  is  at  land,  France  would  domineer 
both  on  sea  and  land ;  the  civilized  world  would  be  subject 
instantly  to  a  despotistn,  as  arrogant,  as  rapacious,  as  unfeel 
ing  as  that  of  Rome  :  her  arms  would  be  vigorously  employed 
to  spread  her  power  from  the  Ganges  to  the  Ohio. 

THE  Aurora  and  Chronicle  are  desired  to  notice  these 
semiments,  and  they  are  invited  to  represent  them  as  the 
proofs  of  partiality  for  Britain,  and  of  the  force  of  British 
influence  :  there  are  many  hundreds  of  their  readers  weak 
enough  to  accept  such  proofs  as  demonstrations.  It  would 
be  easy  to  retort  on  the  jacobins,  that  their  aversion  to  admit 
such  ideas  is  a  clear  indication,  that  they  love  France  well 
enough  to  help  her  to  be  the  universal  despot,  and  that  they 
love  America  so  little  they  would  rejoice  to  see  her  the 
satellite  of  that  despot.  It  is  obvious,  that  the  security  of 
feeble  states  must  depend  on  the  power  of  the  great  states 
being,  balanced  and  divided;  and  those  Americans,  who  can 
deliberately  wish  to  see  Britain  conquered  at  sea,  must  be 
traitors  or  fools. 

IN  the  course  of  this  great  contest,  facts  and  principles  are 
established  of  the  most  momentous  concern  to  all  indepen 
dent  nations.  The  first  leading  observation  is,  that  wretched 
is  the  condition  of  subjects,  when  the  state  itself  is  small  and 
feeble.  Holland  had  no  patriotism,  because  its  strength  was 
little,  and  division  and  discord  made  that  little  less.  It  has 
been  a  prey,  and  its  wealth  has  been  squeezed  out  by  taxes 
openly  laid  to  fill  the  French  treasury.  A  tax  of  ten  per 
cent,  on  income,  excepting  the  poorer  classes,  who  were  to 
be  used  as  sans  culottes,  was  imposed  in  the  first  year  of 
their  slavery,  six  per  cent,  of  which  was  for  France.  The 
rich  were  declared  lawful  prize  ;  and  France,  the  captor, 
divided  the  spoil,  like  the  lion  in  the  fable.  Switzerland,  and 


164  SKETCHES  OF  THE 

the  Italian  republicks  and  states,  exhibit  the  wretchedness  of 
the  people,  where  the  publick  force  is  feeble. 

ANOTHER  observation  is,  that,  where  the  executive  autho 
rity  is  weak,  patriotism  is  extinct.  Holland  was  uneasy? 
because  the  stadtholder  was  the  first  magistrate.  But,  had 
the  execution  of  the  laws  been  duly  intrusted  to  him,  he 
•would  huve  resisted  foreign  influence  with  better  success 
than  he  did :  the  Dutch  would  not  have  lost  their  patriotism, 
before  they  lost  their  country.  Switzerland  was  more  than 
half  conquered,  before  it  was  invaded.  England,  on  the  con 
trary,  has  made  it  dangerous  to  be  a  traitor ;  and  neither 
France  nor  England  allows  faction  to  grow  formidable  before 
it  is  crushed. 

AGAIN,  we  must  remark,  how  much  less  resistance  is 
made  by  states  that  are  confederated,  or  broken  up  into 
separate  sovereignties,  as  Germany,  Italy,  and  Switzerland, 
than  by  such  as,  like  France  and  England,  are  one  and  in 
divisible.  Every  Frenchman,  in  this  country,  has  been  a 
stickler  for  state  sovereignty  ;  and,  in  France,  every  French 
man  has  cried,  no  federalism,  the  republick  one  and  indivisi 
ble.  Accordingly)  France  has. taken  care  to  make  her  neigh 
bours  weak  and  dependent,  by  clipping  and  slicing  their  ter 
ritory  into  petty  republicks:  she  will  not  suffer  any  body  to 
be  great  but  herself.  Germany  formerly  kept  the  legions  of 
Rome  at  bay,  and  now  it  is  overrun  in  one  campaign  ;  yet 
Germany  is  scarcely  less  populous  or  warlike  than  France. 
Italy  has  done  nothing  ;  but  her  petty  sovereigns  have  waited 
tin  event  of  battles,  to  see  who  should  be  their  masters. 
Switzerland  has  done  nothing  worthy  of  her  liberty  and  an 
cient  glory. 

Is  it  not,  therefore,  to  be  hoped,  that,  if  great  changes 
must  be  violently  made  in  Europe,  they  will  be  chiefly  such 
^is  will  consolidate  the  monstrous  confederations  of  many 
lieads  without  a  common  body  or  one  soul,  and  that  the 
Biuallcr  powers  will  be  formed  into  great  states,  so  as  to 


STATE  OF  EUROPE,  165 

increase  the  future  security  for  the  liberty,  and  independence, 
and  happiness  of  their  subjects. 

WE  take  occasion  to  declare,  however,  that  we  are  not 
desirous  to  see  the  American  separate  state  powers  attacked. 
As  they  are,  let  them  remain,  till  experience  suggests  changes, 
and  the  people  are  freely  willing  to  make  them.  We  do  not 
pretend,  however,  that  a  discerning  patriot  ought  not  to  ap 
prehend  the  ambitious  abuse,  that  faction  is  trying  to  make  of 
the  powers  of  the  great  states,  Pennsylvania  and  Virginia,  and 
of  the  disturbance,  foreign  influence,  and  consequent  weakness 
of  the  national  force.  This  point  is  of  late  much  better  under 
stood  in  New-England. 


166    j 


PHOCION.   N°.  I. 

JFIRST    PUBLISHED    IS    THE    PALLADIUM,    APRIL,    1805. 
BRITISH  INFLUENCE. 


B 


RITISH  influence  is  a  phrase  commonly  enough  used  by 
the  jacobins  without  any  meaning,  or  without  any  that  is  pre 
cise.  They  hate  the  federalists,  and  they  have  some  unknown 
and  incommunicable  reasons  for  it,  which  are  at  once  conveyed, 
without  being  denned,  by  charging  them  with  acting  under 
British  influence. 

CORRECT  in  ;uirers  will,  however,  ask  for  definitions.  Influ 
ence,  then  let  it  be  said,  is  political  /ioiver9  and  is  exerted  to 
•modify  or  control,  or  fire-vent  the  fiubiick  measures  of  the  Ameri 
can  nation.  It  may  be  the  private  opinion  of  a  few  scholars, 
that  the  English  government  is  excellent  in  its  principles,  and 
favourable  to  that  sort  of  healthful,  long-lived  liberty,  that 
grows  hardy  by  braving  labours,  and  perils,  and  storms,  and 
that  it  will  probably  survive,  and  be  in  its  youth,  twenty  ages 
after  the  ephemeral  despotisms  of  France  are  lost  in  oblivion. 
These  individual  opinions,  if  they  are  erroneous,  or  extrava 
gant,  or  obnoxious  to  popular  prejudices,  are  not  of  a  sort  to 
influence  the  publick  measures  of  this  country.  They  never 
have  done  it ;  they  have  never  been  popular  opinions,  and  of 
course  have  never  had  political  influence.  Nor  is  it  material, 
that  some  persons  still  respect  England  as  the  land  of  our 
father's  sepulchres. 

THEY  may  think,  that  the  early  principles  and  institutions, 
in  which  the  first  settlers  of  New-England  were  educated  in 
England,  and  which  they  brought  over  and  planted  here,  entitle 
that  nation  to  our  respectful  remembrance.  If  even  the  Eng 
lish  character  should  impress  some  respect,  as  being  sincere, 
generous,  and  benevolent,  if  their  magnanimous  spirit  in  war, 
their  strict  and  impartial  administration  of  justice,  their  enter- 


PHOCION.  167 

prise  in  commerce,  their  ingenuity  in  the  arts,  and  the  renown 
of  their  poets,  statesmen,  and  philosophers,  should,  in  the  eyes 
of  some  admirers,  throw  a  lustre  over  the  British  name,  yet, 
let  it  be  remembered,  those  admirers  are  not  numerous.  They 
dare  not  avow,  that  such  are  their  sentiments.  No,  though  we 
sprung  from  English  parents,  the  only  language  that  can  be 
used,  without  the  risk  of  persecution,  is  that  of  rage,  abhor 
rence,  and  contempt.  At  the  hazard  of  disgracing  our  own 
pedigree,  we  are  summoned,  six  times  a  week,  in  the  jacobin 
gazettes,  to  treat  the  British  subjects  as  the  slaves  of  a  tyrant, 
whose  spirit  is  as  wretched  as  their  lot.  The  publick  opinion 
is  certainly  not  that  of  attachment  to  England  ;  and  it  is  the 
jire-uaUing  popular  sentiment  only  that  can  influence  the  mea 
sures  of  our  government. 

IF  Britain  then  has  influence,  or,  in  other  words,  political 
power,  it  must  be  exerted  in  some  other  way,  and  by  some 
other  instruments  than  such  as  we  have  mentioned. 

THE  base  will  say,  and  the  base  will  believe,  that  Britain  has 
gold  enough  to  buy  friends  and  to  carry  a  vote  in  congress  as 
often  as  her  interests  require  the  expense.  A  charge  of  this 
nature  seldom  needs  proof,  or  is  much  shaken  by  confutation. 
The  base  will  believe  it  without  proof.  They  will  consider 
congress  as  a  market,  where  virtue  is  for  sale,  and,  if  they  look 
into  their  own  hearts,  they  will  find  nothing  there  to  discredit 
the  evidence  of  such  a  traffick,  or  to  enhance  the  terms  of  the 
bargain.  Integrity  and  honour  are  sounding  words,  and  they, 
who  would  pay  a  price  according  to  the  sound,  are  welcome  to 
the  substance.  They  consider  all  virtue  as  a  thing  not  wanted 
for  their  own  use,  but  as  a  false  jewel,  to  be  disposed  of  to  the 
best  customers.  Of  all  men  I  have  ever  known,  the  jacobins 
have  the  worst  opinion  of  human  nature.  An  honest  discharge 
of  duty  in  any  station,  is  a  thing  incredible,  because  with  them 
it  is  incomprehensible.  Accordingly,  they  begin  with  accusa 
tions  and  calumnies  of  the  foulest  sort,  and  call  upon  us  to 
shew  that  they  are  not  true  ;  as  if  the  burden  of  proof  did  not: 
rest  on  the  accusers,  but  the  accused. 


168  PHOCION. 

AFTER  having  charged  Washington,  Adams,  Hamilton* 
Pickering,  Wolcott,  and  others,  with  being  British  partizans, 
they  assume  the  charge  as  a  sentence  judicially  pronounced 
and  established,  and  affect  to  consider  all  solicitude  to  repel  it 
as  an  indication  of  a  consciousness  of  guiit :  the  gulled  jade 
winces,  they  will  say.  But  even  this  burden  of  proof,  however 
unfairly  imposed,  may  be  fearlessly  assumed  by  the  friends  of 
the  federal  administration  of  our  government. 

IT  is  proper  to  remark  to  the  men  who  are  observers  of 
human  nature,  that  of  all  kinds  of  influence  the  first  for  igno 
rant  and  vulgar  minds  to  suspect,  is  downright  bribery  and  cor 
ruption  ;  it  is,  nevertheless,  the  last  for  even  the  profligate  and 
shameless  to  yield  to.  It  is  so  coarse  an  instrument,  that  it 
seldom  answers  the  purpose.  There  are  instances,  and  one  is 
said  to  have  happened  during  our  revolution,  where  a  man, 
who  wanted  integrity,  made  an  outcry,  when  he  had  it  in  his 
power  to  brag  that  it  had  been  tempted.  More  than  half  the 
indictments  for  rapes,  are  founded  on  the  charges  of  women 
of  no  virtue.  There  is  so  much  shame  in  yielding  to  the  offer 
of  a  bribe,  and  so  much  glory  in  refusing  it,  that  the  latter  is 
often  the  better  and  more  tempting  bribe,  which  determines 
the  conduct. 

SIR  Robert  Walpole,  the  celebrated  English  minister,  is  said 
to  have  been  a  master  in  the  art  of  corruption ;  but  when  pub- 
lick  opinion  was  decided  strongly  for  or  against  a  measure,  as 
in  the  cases  of  the  excise,  the  Jew  bill,  if  I  mistake  not,  and 
the  cruelties  of  the  Spanish  guarda-costas,  his  gold  and  his  art 
failed  to  secure  a  majority  in  parliament.  In  the  late  attempt 
to  unite  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  the  project,  in  spite  of 
ministerial  influence,  was  at  first  rejected  by  the  Irish  com 
mons.  The  publick  reasons  were  strong,  the  publick  good 
plainly  called  for  the  union  ;  yet  passion  and  prejudice  oppos 
ed  the  measure.  Ireland,  by  the  union,  seemed  to  be  lost  and 
swallowed  up ;  and  this  secret  dread,  this  inward  horrour,  of 
sinking  into  nothing,  outweighed  all  the  forcible  national  argu 
ments  in  favour  of  the  measure.  It  may  be  added,  that  the 
members  felt  a  like  decline  of  their  own  weight  and  influence; 


PIIOCION.  1£9 

it  may,  therefore,  be  said,  with  sir  Robert  Walpole,  that  it  is 
hard  to  bribe  members  even  to  do  their  duty,  and  to  vote 
according  to  their  consciences  :  much  less  can  they  be  bribed 
to  vote  against  them,  or  rather  against  the  known  voice  of  the 
nation. 

ALL  experience  shews,  that  to  get  a  bad  measure  adopted, 
when  it  is  popular,  is  easy ;  to  get  a  good  one  is  ever  hard, 
aguinst  the  current  of  even  the  most  absurd  and  groundless 
popular  clamour.  The  side,  therefore,  to  look  for  corrupt 
influence  is  ever  the  popular  side,  because  that  is  the  unsus 
pected,  and  yet  the  dark  side  :  members,  in  that  case,  can  be 
praised  for  acting  against  duty.  As  many  are  willing  to  yield 
their  principles,  who  cannot  part  with  their  reputation,  the 
occasions  are  frequent,  when  members  prefer  acting  so  as  to 
please  the  people  instead  of  serving  them. 

THE  current  of  popularity  has  ever  been  anti-British,  it  has 
ever  been  dangerously  French.  From  hence  it  follows,  that 
bribes  could  not  have  been  employed  without  great  difficulty, 
nor  with  much  effect  on  the  British  side,  nor  without  a  great 
deal  of  effect  on  the  French  side  :  there  was  a  general  wil 
lingness  to  be  deceived  in  regard  to  France.  Mr.  Monroe's 
unexampled  assurances,  that  Americans  would  submit  to  cap 
tures,  and  rejoice  in  their  losses,  if  it  would  serve  the  republick, 
and  Mr.  Gerry's  unaccountable,  and  yet  unexplained  lingering 
in  Paris,  are  proofs  how  deep-rooted  and  general  the  prejudice 
is  in  favour  of  the  French. 

IT  will  be  asked,  also,  if  bribes  were  given  by  England,  who 
was  bribed  ?  Washington  ratified  the  treaty  ;  was  he  bribed  ? 
Was  the  senate  and  a  majority  of  the  house  of  representatives  ? 
If  that  is  true,  or  only  suspected,  the  democrats,  who  suspect 
it,  ought  to  go  to  France  to  enjoy  "  the  pure  morals  of  the 
republick,"  instead  of  living  in  a  country  so  corrupt,  and,  as 
Fauchet  said,  so  early  decrepid. 

IT  is  confessed,  these  are  observations  which  tarnish  a  news 
paper  :   they  dishonour    America,  and   yet  the    files   of  the 
democratick  gazettes  repeat  their  audacious  slanders  of  Bri 
tish  influence,  in  a  style  to  extort  a  careful  and  circumstantial 
22 


iro  PPIOCIOX. 

examination  of  the  charge.  What  will  foreigners  think,  what 
will  honest  and  yet  uncorrupted  Americans  believe  of  their  new 
government,  such  as  free  elections  have  made  it,  such  as  Wash 
ington  administered  and  left  it,  that,  after  twelve  prosperous 
years,  it  is  scarcely  tolerated ;  nay,  it  is  not  tolerated,  for  it  is 
taken  from  the  hands  of  its  old  friends  to  put  it  into  other 
hands ;  it  is  arraigned  at  the  bar  like  a  culprit,  and  called  to 
plead  to  a  charge  of  bribery  and  corruption.  If  those  who  will 
rail  could  reason,  the  scandalous  necessity  of  this  vindication 
would  not  be  wholly  useless:  it  would  come  out  of  the  fire  of 
accusation  the  brighter  for  the  trial.  But  there  is  as  much 
levity  as  malice  in  the  jacobins :  they  forget  the  lie  and  the 
confutation,  and  when  the  Chronicle  repeats  the  lie,  it  is  ever 
fresh  and  unconfuted. 


PHOCION.     N°.  II. 

British  Influence. 

BRITISH  influence,  it  has  been  shewn,  could  scarcely 
operate  at  all  in  the  way  of  bribes.  Even  if  members  would 
sell  themselves  to  a  British  emissary,  let  it  be  considered, 
how  few  occasions  could  be  sought  or  found  to  earn  the  wages 
of  iniquity.  Unless  their  conduct  was  popular,  they  would 
lose  their  seats,  and  it  would  be  necessary  every  two  years 
to  buy  a  fresh  set.  It  is,  therefore,  clear,  that  British  gold 
could  not  buy  influence  against  the  course  of  popular  preju 
dices  ;  and  if  popularity  were  once  gained,  there  would  be  no 
need  of  bribing  votes.  Pretty  good  sort  of  men,  we  know, 
will  work  for  popularity ;  very  bad  men  could  not  work  to  any 
effect  for  wages  against  it.  Let  it  be  remembered,  that  a 
famous  democratick  member  on  the  floor  of  congress  once 
said,  when  the  French  minister  applied  for  anticipation  of  an 
instalment  of  the  French  debt,  before  it  was  due,  and  there 
was  no  money  in  the  United  States'  treasury  to  pay  more  than 
the  current  expenses  and  the  interest  of  the  publick  debt: 
There  would  be  no  merit  in  paying  only  when  it  was  due,  and 


PHOCIOX.  171 

tvhen  it  was  convenient  to  pay :  he  rejoiced,  he  said,  thai  America 
eould  strain  her  ?neans,  and  hazard  something  ta  shew  her  grati 
tude.  Bribery  did  not  buy  this  sentiment,  base  as  it  was ;  nor, 
had  it  been  unpopular,  could  money  have  bought  it,  for  then 
its  intrinsick  baseness  would  have  blasted  the  speaker. 

IT  is  the  people,  who  are  to  be  bribed,  influenced,  and  cor 
rupted.  It  is  their  folly,  their  prejudice,  their  best  feelings, 
and  their  worst,  that  are  to  be  tampered  with.  A  lie  in  the 
Chronicle  goes  farther  than  a  guinea,  and  ten  can  be  coined 
and  pushed  into  currency,  before  even  ***  could  be  enlisted. 
This  is  the  lever  to  pry  the  world  out  of  its  orbit.  This  is 
the  power  of  necromancy,  that  can  conjure  spirits  from  the 
deep,  and  they  will  come  and  dwell  in  Marlborough  and  in 
Cambridge.  The  passions  of  the  people  are  the  engines  of 
influence ;  and  he  who  can  move  them  seems  to  have  the 
faculty  of  working  miracles.  A  stupid  Chronicle,  whose  his 
tory  is  false,  whose  argument  is  sophistry,  seemingly  too  flimsy 
to  gull  the  mob,  whose  sneers  always  want  wit,  and  whose 
malice  seems  to  be  too  blind  to  choose  or  to  exercise  its 
weapons,  even  this  wretched  Chronicle,  which  one  would  think 
has  not  vivacity  enough  to  interest  fools,  nor  talent  enough  to 
satisfy  its  knaves,  has  influence,  and  it  is  French  influence. 
Somniferous  as  it  is,  yet,  like  the  wand  of  Mercury,  it  has  the 
power  to  compel  the  spirits  of  a  multitude. 

BUT  from  speculative  reasoning,  let  us  turn  our  attention 
to  facts.  Is  there  one  measure  of  the  government,  in  which 
British  influence  has  manifested  itself:  it  would  be  silly  to 
suppose,  that  votes  were  bought  to  be  lost.  In  what  act  has  a 
partiality  for  Great  Britain  appeared  ?  Surely  our  impost  act 
affords  no  such  proof:  American  manufactures  are  deservedly 
preferred.  This  would  be  a  tender  point  for  British  partizans 
to  push.  And  be  it  remembered,  the  opposers  of  such  prefer 
ence  of  our  own  manufactures  were,  first  to  last,  the  Southern 
jacobins.  Had  British  gold  been  used  for  British  purposes, 
the  federalists  could  have  gratified  their  opposers  by  yielding 
this  point;  but  they  did  not,  and  would  not  ^ -eld  it.  A  point 
no  less  dear  to  Great  Britain  is  her  carrying  trade.  That  was 


172  PHOCION. 

carried  by  federal  votes  to  prefer  American  bottoms,  and  the 
preference  was  'carried  so  fur,  that  some  sound  friends  to  our 
navigating  interest  were  afraid  of  making  a  counteraction  by 
the  British  government.  Does  this  look  like  British  influence  ? 
If  Britain  had  any  thing  at  heart,  it  was  this ;  yet  the  very 
clamorers  about  British  influence  were  the  oppose rs  of  these 
measures.  What  did  they  do  ?  They  wished  to  prefer  French 
fabricks  and  French  bottoms  to  British ;  and  this  would  have 
placed  the  burden  of  encouraging  French  manufactures  and 
shipping,  as  a  tax  on  the  consumers  and  shippers  in  America. 
Does  not  this  look  like  foreign  influence  with  a  vengeance  ? 
When  Britain  captured  our  vessels,  in  1794,  the  federalists 
were  the  only  men,  who  said,  negotiate  first,  prepare  revenue, 
ships,  and  troops,  and  if  we  cannot  get  justice,  then  fight.  This 
was  Hamilton's  plan,  and  all  the  federal  members  acted  upon  it. 
The  opposers  of  this  plan  were  the  accusing  jacobins.  They 
Said,  no  ships,  nor  troops,  nor  taxes :  let  New-England  fit  out 
privateers  ;  we  will  confiscate  :  that  is  our  sort  of  resolution 
and  patriotism.  Does  not  this  fact,  so  authentick  and  solemn, 
as  well  as  recent,  speak  to  the  memory  of  the  people,  that  if 
foreign  influence  prevails,  it  is  not  among  federalists  that  it 
prevails.  There  is  not  a  naked  tribe  in  Guinea,  whose  spirit 
is  baser,  or  has  yielded  with  more  servile  cowardice  to  foreign 
influence,  than  the  conduct  of  the  democrats  has  manifested 
towards  France  ;  yet  these  are  the  accusers.  Shame,  if  it  had 
not  lost  its  power  on  these  men,  would  strike  them  dumb  with 
confusion.  Is  there  any  point,  that  any  administration,  even 
Washington's,  could  have  yielded  to  Britain,  so  debasing  as 
the  surrender  of  the  ships  captured  from  France  ?  There  is  no 
condition  of  disgrace  below  it :  without  being  vanquished,  we 
agree  to  pass  under  the  yoke. 

ON  a  review  of  the  long  series  of  publick  measures,  there 
is  none  that  bears  the  aspect  of  British  influence.  There  has 
been  no  attempt  even  to  prefer  any  foreign  nation  to  America, 
except  in  favour  of  France.  That  shameless  attempt,  always 
baffled,  is  still  renewed  ;  and  Buonaparte  and  his  admirers  still 
hope,  that  we  shall  be  French  enough  to  enter  the  lists  against 


PHOCTON.  173 

Great  Britain,  to  assert  the  absurd  novelties  called  the  modern 
law  of  nations. 

FACTS  do  not  lie.  They  speak  plainly,  that  there  has  been 
no  poiitical  power  to  control  or  prevent  the  measures  of  our 
government,  possessed  or  exercised  by  Britain.  Yet  this  evi 
dence  will  not  silence  or  abash  the  impudence  of  the  demo- 
cratick  slanderers  of  our  government :  credulity  will  still  be 
a  dupe,  nor  will  detection  spoil  the  game  of  imposture. 


PHOCION.     N°.  III. 

British  Influence. 

IT  is  not  their  only  reason,  but  it  is  one  of  very  great  effica* 
ty  with  the  politicians  of  the  Virginia  school,  for  exciting  and 
diffusing  an  aversion  to  the  commercial  system,  that  our  com 
merce  is  carried  on  by  the  help  of  British  capital,  and  that,  as 
the  trade  increases,  the  mass  of  debt  due  to  British  merchants 
goes  on  augmenting.  Hence  they  assure  us,  that  our  trade 
with  England  is  a  fruitful  source  both  of  corruption  and  depen 
dence.  Nay,  these  apostles  from  the  race-ground  and  the 
cock -pit  tremble  for  our  republican  morals,  so  much  exposed 
to  the  contagion  of  our  intercourse  with  the  manners  and  fash 
ions,  the  books  and  institutions  of  a  corrupted  monarchy.  The 
word  monarchy  is  of  course  a  substitute  for  argument,  and  its 
overmatch  :  many  hundreds  will  condemn  the  task,  as  equally 
bold  and  mischievous,  of  the  writer,  who  shall  presume  to 
think,  that  we  may  deal  with  the  subjects  of  a  king,  and  make 
estates,  without  making  a  set  of  king,  lords,  and  bishops  for 
ourselves. 

THERE  is  a  previous  question :  are  we  more  likely  to  become, 
from  observation,  monarchy-men,  than  the  citizens  of  London 
are  to  adopt  the  maxims  of  our  democracies  ?  Perhaps  it  will 
appear,  that  our  danger  is  not  so  great  as  theirs.  Democracy, 
by  indulging  the  fervours  of  the  popular  spirit,  is  more  dispos 
ed  to  imbibe  a  zeal  for  proselytism.  The  everlasting  bustle 
of  our  elections,  the  endless  disputations  and  harangues  of 


IH  PHOCION. 

demagogues,  keep  our  spirits  half  the  time  smoking  and 
ready  to  kindle,  and  the  other  half  in  a  blaze.  Zeal  is  ever 
contagious,  and,  accordingly,  the  only  political  propagandists  now 
in  the  world  are  the  democrats.  The  monarchists  have  less 
to  do  in  the  concerns  of  their  government,  and  talk  and  wran 
gle  less  about  it.  The  spirit  of  subordination  they  have  ;  that 
of  proselytism  they  have  not.  When  life,  liberty,  and  property 
are  protected,  they  are  contented,  although  their  system  should 
appear  to  speculatists  inferiour  in  its  theory  to  the  best  of  all 
possible  governments.  Some  men  among  us,  and  some  of  our 
scribbling  countrymen  abroad,  have  been  modest  and  wise 
enough  to  imagine,  that  all  the  kings  and  ministers  in  Europe 
were  watching  our  republican  administration  with  eyes  of  fear 
and  jealousy.  The  jacobin  newspapers  have  assured  us,  that 
all  kings  sleep  un  juietly,  and  are  visited  with  horrid  dreams, 
because  we  are  republicans.  In  1794,  "the  Solomons  in 
"  council"  then  advised  us  to  cling  to  sister  France,  as  the 
only  power,  able,  and,  being  a  republick,  willing  to  save  us  from 
a  royal  coalition.  The  fact  is,  foreign  statesmen  have  not 
regarded  America  as  much  as  they  ought :  we  can  see  more 
evident  marks  of  their  neglect  than  their  dread  of  us. 

BUT  the  other  part  of  this  common-place  threadbare  proof 
of  the  preponderance  of  British  influence  remains  to  be  con 
sidered.  We  employ  British  capitals,  and,  therefore,  as  the 
borrower  is  servant  to  the  lender,  they  say,  we  are  but  passive 
instruments  in  the  hands  of  our  creditors.  There  is  no  country, 
where  Capital  is  employed  to  so  manifest  and  lasting  advantage 
as  in  the  United  States,  because  there  is  none,  where  the 
objects  of  employment  so  much  exceed  the  amount  of  capital 
to  be  employed.  WThen  we  give  five  or  six  per  cent,  for  Bri 
tish  capital,  and  employ  it  at  eight,  ten,  or  in  some  branches 
of  trade,  at  twenty,  or  when  it  is  occupied  in  clearing  a  wilder 
ness  almost  boundless,  and  filling  it  with  houses  and  settlers, 
the  augmentation  of  our  wealth  is  obvious.  The  real  estate  of 
the  nation,  that  which  must  belong  to  posterity,  is  also  prodi 
giously  increased  :  every  year  some  hundred  thousand  acres  of 
Tjew  cleared  land  are  added  to  the  pasturage  and  wheat  fieWs. 


PHOCION.  ItS 

Yet  these  advantages,  great  as  they  are,  would  be  too  dearly 
purchased,  if  Great  Britain  derived  a  political  influence  over 
our  government  from  the  operations  of  her  wealthy  capitalists. 
It  is  not  easy  to  see  how  she  obtains  a  control  over  our 
publick  measures,  from  her  subjects  permitting  our  mer 
chants,  and  speculators,  and  land-jobbers  to  acquire  a  control 
over  their  wealth.  Of  all  men  the  jacobins  ought  to  abstain 
from  saying,  that  this  is  the  influence  of  Britain  over  our  go 
vernment.  They  avow  principles  in  regard  to  publick  faith  and 
the  rights  of  British  creditors,  that  manifestly  place  British 
property,  intrusted  to  the  safe-keeping  of  our  laws,  at  the 
mercy  of  a  confiscating  majority  of  congress,  if,  to  the  scan 
dal  of  America,  such  a  majority  should  be  there.  British 
capital,  deposited  in  Algiers,  would  be  considered  as  a  pledge 
held  by  the  Dey,  liable  to  forfeiture  in  case  the  British  govern 
ment  should  give  him  occasion  of  offence.  With  ideas  so 
honourable  to  America,  principles  so  truly  Algerine,  that 
they  would  be  nets  to  catch  unwary  Englishmen,  it  is  truly 
astonishing,  that  the  jacobins  should  mistake  so  grossly  as 
to  call  this  a  source  of  British  influence.  One  of  their 
objections  to  the  treaty  was,  that  it  stipulates  security  to 
this  booty,  and  restrains  congress  from  privateering  ashore 
and  before  a  declaration  of  war. 

THE  British  creditor,  who  claims  his  debt  against  a  citi 
zen,  is  dependent  on  the  justice  of  our  laws.  All  the  influence 
that  he  or  his  government  can  desire  in  the  case,  is  just 
payment ;  if  more  is  demanded,  surely  our  juries  will  be 
protectors  of  the  rights  of  the  debtor.  Any  honest  American 
will  blush,  if  it  is  suggested,  that  British  influence  will  be 
necessary  to  prevent  the  denial  of  justice. 

THIS  brings  us  to  consider  the  supposed  influence  arising 
from  the  claims  of  British  creditors.  This  is  a  question  to 
be  tested  by  experience.  If  political  power  has  followed 
British  debts,  then  the  greatest  display  and  most  flagrant 
abuse  of  that  power  is  to  be  expected  in  the  states,  where 
there  is  the  largest  arrear  of  debt.  Yet  in  Virginia,  which 


176  PHOCIOJf. 

owes  fifty  times  as  much  as  Connecticut,  the  British  influ 
ence  has  never  been  great  enough  to  obtain  payment,  while 
Connecticut  allows  an  Englishman  to  exact  it  without  reluc 
tance  or  impediment.  So  far  is  Virginia  from  having  been 
enslaved  by  the  British  creditors,  that  her  state  laws  have 
been  framed  and  administered  so  as  to  exclude  lands,  and  I 
believe,  in  effect,  if  not  expressly,  negroes  from  the  opera 
tion  of  process.  A  man  might  be  a  debtor  there  thousands 
of  pounds  more  than  his  estate  would  discharge,  and  live  a 
life  of  ease  and  luxury,  defying  British  creditors  and  cursing 
British  influence,  go  to  congress  a  patriot  fiercer  than  a 
dragon  for  liberty  and  equal  rights. 

WHO  does  not  know,  that  many  of  the  states  were  in  the 
hands  of  debtors,  who  made  laws  to  keep  off'  creditors  ?  Who 
is  ignorant,  that  the  constitution  contains  an  article  to  restrain 
such  laws,  and  that  this  article  soured  into  fermentation  the 
leaven  of  anti-federalism  at  first,  and  of  jacobinism  since  ? 
The  great  planters  could  not  endure  it,  that  equal  justice 
should  strip  them  of  the  pre-eminence  that  they  derived 
from  their  lands,  and  that  the  laws,  made  for  their  own  con 
venience,  had  so  long  secured  to  them.  So  far  have  British 
debts  been  from  creating  British  influence,  that  they  have 
given  rise  to  the  most  rancorous  hatred.  Happy  will  it  be,  if 
the  Northern  people  are  not,  in  the  end,  made  victims  of  that 
hatred;  if  a  system  of  irritation  should  not  be  cunningly  de 
vised,  and  blindly  adopted,  that  New-England  may  be  strip 
ped  of  its  earnings  by  captures,  and  that  Virginia  debts  may 
be  wiped  off  by  an  unnecessary  British  war. 


PHOCION.     N°.  IV. 

British  Influence. 

THE  first  settlers  of  the  British  Northern  colonies  were 
Englishmen.  Most  new  settlements  are  first  peopled  by  the 
outcasts  and  scum  of  the  mother  country  ;  but  New-England 


PHOCIOtf.  177 

can  boast,  that  its  ancestors  were  Englishmen,  which,  I  con 
fess,  I  consider  as  matter  of  boasting,  and  that  they  were 
the  best  of  Englishmen  :  they  were  serious,  devout  chris- 
tians,  of  pure,  exemplary  morals,  zealous  lovers  of  liberty, 
well  educated  and  men  of  substantial  property.  There  was 
never  a  new  colony  formed  of  better  materials  ;  never  was 
one  more  carefully  founded  on  plan  and  system,  and  no 
plan  or  system  has  discovered  more  foresight,  or  been 
crowned  with  more  splendid  success.  Our  forefathers  im 
mediately  displayed  a  zeal  and  watchfulness,  that  the  new 
society  should  be  of  the  best  sort,  rather  than  of  the  largest 
size.  Instead  of  building  a  Babel  of  wild  Irish,  Germans, 
and  outlaws  of  all  nations,  such  as  would  be  suitable  for  a 
***  to  govern,  and  such  as  would  have  preferred  his  govern 
ment,  they  excluded  not  only  foreigners  but  immoral  per 
sons  from  political  power  and  even  from  inhabitancy.  This 
has  been  called  meanness  and  narrowness  of  spirit.  New- 
England,  however,  owes  its  schools,  colleges,  towns,  and  pa 
rishes,  its  close  population,  its  learned  clergy,  much  of  its 
light  and  knowledge,  its  arts  and  commerce,  and  spirit  of 
enterprise  to  this  early  wisdom  of  our  ancestors.  Even  its 
growth  and  prosperity,  though  later,  will  not  ultimately 
prove  less,  than  if  it  had  been  settled  on  what  many  call  a 
liberal  plan. 

IN  consequence  of  our  extraction  and  the  institutions  of 
our  ever  to  be  remembered  ancestors,  New -England  has  a 
distinct  and  well-defined  national  character  ;  the  only  part  of 
the  United  States  that  has  yet  any  pretensions  to  it.  There 
are  many  truly  enlightened  citizens  in  the  other  states,  who 
have  tried  to  introduce  into  them  the  schools,  town  divisions, 
and  other  institutions  of  New-England.  But  if  they  could 
do  it,  these  institutions  would  be  novelties,  whose  authority 
would  be  for  an  age  or  two  feeble  and  limited,  in  comparison 
of  old  habits  and  institutions.  Besides,  most  of  the  Southern 
men  of  sense  have  prejudices  in  respect  to  the  establishment 
of  a  learned  clergy,  and  obliging  every  small  district  to  sup» 
23 


1~8  PHOCION. 

port  a  minister.  Without  this  precious  security  for  the 
support  of  good  morals  and  true  religion,  the  attempt  will  be 
vain  to  adopt  the  laws  and  institutions  of  our  ancestors. 

NAY,  popular  prejudices  against  these  institutions  are 
fixed,  and  have  been  cherished  in  most  of  the  Southern 
states.  They,  perhaps  sincerely,  consider  these  as  buruen- 
some  and  tyrannical  restraints,  and,  without  very  well  know 
ing  what  they  are,  unite  in  disclaiming  them  as  English, 
and  remnants  of  bigotry.  Hence  the  laws  and  customs  of 
England  are  so  much  represented  in  Virginia  as  inconsistent 
with,  republicanism,  that  they  have  voted  to  instruct  their 
members  in  congress  to  procure  their  formal  abolition. 
Hence  it  is,  that  they  are  stated  to  be  the  badges  and  the  in 
struments  of  British  influence.  They  say,  an  Englishman 
from  the  midland  counties,  suddenly  transplanted  into  New- 
England,  would  scarcely  know  he  was  not  in  his  o\\  n  coun 
try  :  he  would  hear  the  same  language,  he  would  observe 
4the  same  manners.  This  close  affinity  and  resemblance, 
they  say,  is  the  occasion  of  a  partiality  for  England  that  is 
dangerous  to  our  republicanism. 

TRITE  observations  of  this  kind  make  impression  on  the 
two-fold  account,  that  they  are  plausible,  and  that  they  are 
so  loose  and  indefinite  that  they  are  not  precisely  understood. 
It  seems  to  be  very  possible,  that  we  should  reverence  the 
English  common  law,  and  the  customs  and  institutions  we 
derive  from  our  English  ancestors,  without  loving  or  trust 
ing  lord  North,  or  William  Pitt,  or  any  other  minister  of  the 
British  government.  This  distinction  was  made  very  exactly 
in  the  year  1775,  when  hostilities  began  The  New-England 
states  are  closely  allied  in  aifection,  as  well  as  by  resemblance 
of  character  and  manners  ;  yet  it  has  never  been  the  case, 
that  Massachusetts  was  able  to  exercise  an  inconvenient  in 
fluence  over  the  affairs  of  Connecticut.  It  is,  perhaps,  to  be 
lamented,  that  the  good  sense  and  good  order  of  Connecticut, 
in  its  elections,  have  not  had  influence  enough  to  procure  the 
adoption  of  their  laws  by  their  neighbours. 


i»HOCION.  179 

THUS  it  seems  that  fact  stands,  as  it  often  does,  in  opposi 
tion  to  plausible  theory. 

WE  adopt  the  rules  of  justice  from  Great  Britain,  and  as 
long  as  we  are  allowed  to  enjoy  good  order,  we  shall  desire  to 
provide  for  the  administration  of  justice,  and  we  shall  continue 
to  think  it  a  precious  advantage,  that  we  can  adopt  so  many 
important  rules  and  principles  to  regulate  its  distribution,  after 
England  has  tried  them,  and  proved  that  they  will  answer. 
Surely  this  is  a  different  thing  from  political  influence.  As 
well  might  it  be  said,  that  by  copying  their  books,  or  even 
imitating  their  new  invented  labour-saving  machines,  we  aug 
ment  their  influence. 

NEXT  to  the  power  of  religion,  a  strict  administration  of 
justice  is  the  best  security  of  morals.  Foreign  influence  will 
not  greatly  prevail,  as  long  as  morals  remain  uncorrupted. 
The  BrLish  common  law  is,  therefore,  one  of  the  bulwarks 
against  that  corruption  of  manners,  which  will  invite  foreign  in 
fluence,  in  spite  of  all  the  frothy  harangues  that  will  ascribe  it  to 
the  wrong  causes.  A  people  thoroughly  licentious  and  corrupt 
(and  democracy  will  make  them  such)  will  be  betrayed,  and 
foreign  states  will  reward  demagogues  for  managing  their 
passions  to  mislead  them.  It  is  by  practising  on  their  hopes 
and  fears,  that  such  men  gain  an  influence  over  the  people, 
and  after  they  have  gained,  they  have  it  for  sale. 

BUT,  for  the  very  reason  that  we  nearly  resemble  the  Eng 
lish,  it  will  be  peculiarly  difficult  to  acquire  that  popular  influ 
ence.  Let  this  be  examined. 

NOTHING  is  so  odious  or  offensive  as  comparisons.  When 
we  find  that  we  are  compared  with  others,  we  are  uneasy  and 
displeased  with  the  result  of  the  comparison,  unless  we  find 
that  the  preference  is  assigned  to  ourselves.  We .  consider 
those  as  our  enemies,  who  thus  degrade  us,  and  we  revenge 
ourselves  by  noting  the  defects  of  their  judgment  and  the 
malignity  of  their  dispositions,  who  have  thus  deeply  wounded 
our  self-love.  Comparisons  that  are  thus  frequently  made, 
render  this  angry  spirit  rancorous  and  habitual.  But  com 
parisons  of  this  Mnd  are  not  made,  unless  with  persons  who 


180  PHOCION 

pretty  nearly  resemble  us.  It  is  believed  to  be  hard  for  two 
beauties  to  be  friends/  Our  pride  is  never  hurt  by  our  being 
compared  with  those  who  are  veiy  unlike  us,  and  even  if  the 
superiority  is  assigned  to  the  other  party,  the  decision  is  ren 
dered  inoffensive  by  the  manifest  dissimilarity  of  the  subjects 
of  the  comparison.  In  like  manner,  we  know  that  Americans 
resemble  Frenchmen  so  little,  that  there  is  no  ground  for  invi 
dious  comparison  ;  but  Englishmen  we  are  like,  and  the  pain 
ful  question  to  national  pride  is,  which  nation  is  superiour. 
Partial  as  we  are  and  ought  to  be  to  the  American  nation,  we 
cannot  despise  the  English  nation,  we  will  not  prefer  them, 
all  that  is  left  is  to  hate  them.  I  ask  with  emphasis,  is  not 
this  done  ?  Is  not  the  pride  of  Great  Britain  the  theme  of  popu 
lar  irritation  ?  Is  not  their  power  held  up  as  a  bug-bear  ?  Is  not 
this  fear  an  instrument  to  work  upon  the  passions  of  our  citi 
zens  ?  and  which  of  our  demagogues  could  hold  his  authority 
without  using  it  ?  We  are  too  much  like  the  English  to  love 
them,  because  we  love  ourselves  better,  and  we  hate  all  compa 
risons  that  mortify  our  self-love. 

THE  fact  is,  the  hatred  of  England  is  excessive,  and,  as  popu 
lar  passions  are  the  agents  of  our  political  good  or  evil,  exposes 
our  government  to  the  extreme  hazard  of  confusion  and  French 
fraternity,  and  our  peace  to  the  shock  of  a  British  war. 


PHOCION.    N°.  V. 

British  Influence. 

FOREIGN  influence  has  been  traced  with  some  attention 
to  the  impediments  and  auxiliaries  of  its  operation,  within  our 
country.  It  remains  to  look  without  it,  and  to  consider  the 
political  situation  of  France  and  England,  and  to  determine, 
which  of  the  two  will  be  disposed  and  invited  to  employ  her 
influence  in  the  control  of  our  affairs. 

THE  counsels  of  both  will  be  guided  by  their  views  of  poli 
tical  good  and  evil.  It  is  not  believed,  that  France,  insolent 
with  victory,  and  crimson  with  revolutionary  crimes,  will  regard 


PHOCION.  181 

either  shame  or  principle.  It  is  not  believed,  that  England 
will  wholly  disregard  the  maxims  and  rules  of  civilized  states. 
But  without  really  admitting,  that  France  is  on  a  footing  in 
point  of  morals  or  deference  to  the  laws  of  nations,  even  with 
Algiers,  it  shall,  for  argument  sake,  be  conceded  to  those  who 
love  her  better  than  America,  that  France  and  England  will 
exactly  alike  pursue  what  their  interest  dictates.  Be  it  so. 

ENGLAND  then  is  commercial.  Her  commerce  thrives  by 
the  immense  superiority  of  her  skill,  industry,  and  capital.  She 
has  capital  enough  to  employ  and  to  trust.  Her  interest,  as  a 
trading  nation,  is  to  have  good  customers  :  her  interest  is,  that 
those  who  owe  should  pay.  But  the  essence,  and  almost  the 
quintessence,  of  a  good  government  is,  to  protect  property  and 
its  rights.  When  these  are  protected,  there  is  scarcely  any 
booty  left  for  oppression  to  seize  ;  the  objects  and  the  motives 
to  usurpation  and  tyranny  are  removed.  By  securing  property, 
life  and  liberty  can  scarcely  fail  of  being  secured  :  where  pro 
perty  is  safe  by  rules  and  principles,  there  is  liberty.  It  is 
precisely  such  a  government  that  Great  Britain  wishes  to  find 
and  to  sustain,  wherever  her  commerce  and  credit  extend. 
She  is,  of  course,  so  far  as  her  commercial  interest  extends, 
the  friend  of  all  governments  that  are  friends  to  justice  and 
protectors  of  honest  creditors.  Where  justice  ceases,  there 
her  credit  stops.  Stable  governments,  and  especially  such  as 
have  a  portion  of  liberty  to  give  them  enterprise  and  to  make 
them  large  consumers,  are  her  best  customers.  If  Turkey  in 
Europe  had  as  much  law  and  liberty  as  the  United  States,  it 
would  demand,  perhaps,  as  much  manufactures  as  Britain  could 
supply.  Britain  is  obviously  and  demonstrably  interested,  not 
in  the  overthrow,  but  in  the  support  of  the  regular  govern 
ments  in  existence,  no  matter  whether  monarchies  or  repub- 
licks.  Governments  that  will  compel  debtors  to  be  just,  are 
all,  in  their  form  and  administration,  that  British  influence,  in 
this  point  of  view,  could  be  employed  to  make  them.  Accord 
ingly,  we  do  not  find,  that  the  trade  of  England  with  Holland 
was  ever  disturbed,  because  the  latter  was  a  refiublick,  and  for 
half  a  century  destitute  even  of  a  stadtholder ;  we  do  not  find% 


182  PHOCION. 

that  Englishmen  were  set  at  work  to  preach  democracy  in 
Cadiz,  though  surely  English  liberty  is  as  uniike  Spanish  des 
potism  as  our  republicanism.  No,  she  was  well  content  to 
clothe  the  colonists  of  Spain,  and  to  receive  their  gold,  silver, 
and  diamonds,  without  stirring  up  a  faction  in  Lisbon  or  Mad 
rid  to  call  first  town  meetings  and  then  parliaments.  Experi 
ence  has  fully  shewn*  that  commerce,  with  democratick  and 
uristocratick  repubiicks,  with  monarchies  and  simple  despo 
tisms,  has  been  alike  cherished  and  prosecuted  for  ages,  without 
a  suspicion,  and  certainty  without  an  attempt  on  the  part  of 
Great  Britain  to  revolutionize  their  governments.  It  is  not 
difficult  to  shew,  that  stable  liberty  is  the  best  condition  of 
nations  for  the  advancement  of  her  commercial  interest ;  yet 
no  attempt  is  recollected  even  to  introduce  this  blessing  insi 
diously  among  her  customers.  The  subjects  of  despots  con 
sume  little  and  pay  less  :  the  diffusion  of  true  and  stable  liberty 
would  augment  her  commerce  and  manufactures. 

IT  must  be  urged  also,  that  the  genuine  liberty  of  English 
men  is  unfavourable  to  the  fanatical  spirit  of  conquest.  Every 
able-bodied  man  at  the  plough  or  in  the  workshops  of  Birming 
ham  and  Sheffield,  is  worth  scarcely  less  than  one  hundred 
guineas.  A  free  nation  will  be  prosperous,  and  a  prosperous 
nation  cannot  employ  a  man  as  a  soldier  without  diverting  his 
industry  from  husbandry  or  the  arts.  It  costs  too  much  for 
free  thriving  nations  to  be  soldiers  :  the  military  spirit  is  no 
more  to  be  indulged,  than  a  taste  for  luxuries  by  the  poor, 
because  the  objects  of  gratification  are,  in  both  cases,  equally 
out  of  reach.  Rich  states  can  poorly  afford  to  wear  armour : 
the  sword  is  the  dearest  of  all  tools.  The  ragged  peasantry  of 
France,  half  employed,  less  than  half  paid,  were  ever  ready  to 
listen  to  the  enchanting  eloquence  of  a  recruiting  sergeant. 
War  has  ever  been  in  France  the  trade  first  in  credit  and  least 
of  all  in  rivalship  with  any  other. 

BRITAIN,  with  a  moderate  population,  has,  therefore,  never 
been  in  a  condition  to  indulge  the  spirit  of  conquest.  Terri 
torial  aggrandizement  has,  indeed,  been  her  object  in  Bengal 
and  the  peninsula  of  India  ;  but  it  was  there  in  subservience 


PHOCION.  183 

tb  her  commerce  ;  and,  let  it  be  remarked,  that  the  unwarlike 
Gentoos  offered  little  resistance  to  her  arms :  she  employed 
but  a  handful  of  Europeans  to  subject  empires  to  the  India 
company.  This  seeming  exception  from  the  observation  be 
fore  made  is,  nevertheless,  a  strong  illustration  of  its  truth  : 
she  contended  for  territory  for  the  sake  of  her  commerce,  and 
great  as  the  prize  was,  the  means  she  could  employ  were 
feeble. 

IT  may  be  said,  therefore,  on  the  ground  of  experience,  that 
the  territorial  ambition  of  Great  Britain  is  limited  and  checked 
by  her  situation,  character,  and  means ;  her  insular  situation, 
her  commercial  character,  and  her  pecuniary  means.  Being 
an  island,  she  cannot  annex  provinces  to  her  empire ;  being 
commercial,  she  aims  rather  at  profit  than  power ;  and  being 
prosperous  and  industrious,  her  citizens  are  too  dear  to  be 
hired  as  soldiers.  Britain  cannot  rais^  great  land  armies,  and, 
therefore,  she  cannot  be  so  mad  as  to  effect  conquests  that 
would  require  them.  Admitting  that  the  United  States  would 
submit  a  little  sourly  to  her  government,  it  would  take  forty 
or  fifty  thousand  men  in  camps  and  garrisons,  to  keep  any 
shew  of  authority  over  America ;  and  on  the  first  symptoms  of 
resistance  they  must  be  doubled.  Great  Britain,  as  she  is,  is 
not  rich  enough  to  afford  to  accept  of  the  sixteen  states  as 
provinces.  If  a  spirit,  as  restless  and  turbulent  as  Pennsyl 
vania  has  shewn,  should  accompany  and  succeed  our  submis 
sion,  we  should  certainly  drain  her  treasury,  and  finally  baffle 
her  arms. 

GREAT  BRITAIN  pursues  a  policy  of  more  moderation,  justice, 
and  wisdom.  Her  naval  superiority  is  employed  to  extend  her 
commerce :  if  she  carries  her  sword  in  one  hand,  it  is  to  offer 
her  commodities  with  the  other.  Her  ships  of  war  cannot 
conquer  extensive  territories,  nor  preserve  them  in  subjection. 
Thus  the  means  she  possesses,  and  those  she  wants,  almost 
equally  exclude  her  from  territorial  power.  Perhaps  the  in 
crease  of  her  soldiers  would  necessarily  exhaust  the  funds  for 
the  support  ol  her  ships,  and,  therefore,  we  are  certain  that 


184  PHOG1ON. 

she  will  not  ordinarily  attempt  impossibilities ;  she  will  not  try- 
to  gain  the  possession  of  territory  that  she  could  not  keep. 

THE  application  of  these  remarks  is  easy.  We  conceive 
that  Britain  has  no  motive,  nor  has  she  means  to  disturb  the 
government  of  the  United  States,  by  attempting  to  excite  the 
popular  passions  to  control  its  measures.  She  cannot  have 
influence,  because  those  passions  will  for  ever  run  counter  to 
her  wishes :  those  wishes,  conformable  to  her  interests,  will  be 
to  support  the  government,  that  the  goverment  may  support 
justice.  The  very  nature  of  her  power  ensures  an  irreconcila 
ble  hostility  with  popular  feeling  in  the  United  States.  She  is 
commercial,  and  so  are  we.  Excluded  from  some  of  her  ports 
in  our  own  ships,  rivals  and  competitors  in  all  marts,  inferiour 
in  all  seas,  and  made  especially  in  time  of  war  sensible  by  her 
arrogance  and  injustice,  painfully  sensible  of  our  inferiority, 
we  shall  hate  her  power,  and  suspect  her  influence,  when  she 
has  none,  when  she  cannot  have  any,  and  when  the  hatred 
gives  influence  to  her  rival,  France. 


PHOCION.    N°.  VI. 

French  Influence. 

FRENCH  influence  has  found,  and  will  long  find,  both 
motives  and  means  to  disturb  and  control  the  measures  of  any 
honest  and  truly  national  government  in  America. 

SINCE  Rome,  no  state  has  ever  manifested  such  exorbitant 
ambition  as  France.  Whether  this  arises  from  the  nature  of 
her  power,  which  has  ever  been  military,  or  the  extent  of  it, 
which,  for  two  centuries,  has  proved  an  overmatch  for  any 
European  state ;  whether  two  centuries  spent  in  efforts  for 
aggrandizement  have  formed  martial  habits,  or  whether  the 
national  character  be  the  cause  rather  than  the  effect  of  those 
struggles,  the  fact  is  certain,  that  France  is  of  all  modern 
states  the  most  military,  intriguing,  and  ambitious.  Since  the 
revolution,  all  traces  of  every  other  passion  have  disappeared, 
and  the  sword  is  the  only  utensil  to  occupy  industry  or  to  carve 


rilOCIOX.  X85 

out  its  recompense.  With  that,  Frenchmen  reap  where  they 
have  not  sowed :  by  waving  that,  they  command  the  diamonds 
of  Brasil,  and  strip  the  churches  of  Italy.  Good  fortune, 
scarcely  less  than  Roman,  has  kindled  a  passion  for  conquest, 
and  blown  up  a  pride,  which  the  hostile  force  of  the  civilized 
world  would  not  intimidate,  the  empire  of  the  world  would 
not  satisfy.  The  avarice  of  a  commercial  nation  calculates 
its  means  and  reckons  up  the  value  of  them  ;  a  conquering 
nation  disdains  both  gold  and  arithmetick,  and  computes 
the  presumption  and  audacity  of  its  attempts,  as  surprises  on 
its  plodding  neighbours,  and  as  the  resources  to  ensure  its 
triumphs.  Behold  France,  conducting  her  intrigues  and  array 
ing  her  force  between  the  arctick  circle  and  the  tropicks ;  sec 
her,  in  Russia,  the  friend  of  despotism,  preparing  to  subvert 
the  empire  of  the  Turks;  in  Ireland,  the  auxiliary  of  a  bloody- 
democracy  ;  in  Spain  and  Italy,  a  papist ;  in  Egypt,  a  mussul- 
man  ;  in  India,  a  bramin ;  and  at  home,  an  atheist ;  countenanc 
ing  despotism,  monarchy,  democracy,  religion  of  every  sort, 
and  none  at  all,  as  suits  the  necessity  of  the  moment.  It  may 
be  said,  that  it  is  nothing  to  the  people  of  France,  whether 
their  armies  win  or  lose  a  battle  :  glory  is  not  bread. 

IT  is  incredible  to  many,  that  a  nation  should  perform  labours 
and  make  efforts  of  the  most  perilous  and  astonishing  kind, 
merely  for  glory.  Those,  however,  who  reason  against  the 
military  passion  as  a  chimera,  arraign  the  authority  of  history. 
What  was  it  to  the  Romans,  that  Mithridates,  or  Tigranes,  or 
Antiochus,  or  Perseus,  or  Arsaces,  did  not  respect  the  majority 
of  the  Roman  people  ?  Surely  that  did  not  affect  the  markets 
or  amusements  of  Rome.  Yet  never  was  there  an  objection 
in  the  forum,  never  was  there  any  repugnance  to  the  enrol 
ment  of  the  legions  for  chastising  the  rebellious  insolence  of 
any  king,  who  had  never  heard  of  the  Roman  name,  or  who 
did  not  tremble  when  he  heard  it.  Accordingly,  the  soldier 
citizens  cheerfully  engaged  to  march  across  deserts  and  moun 
tains  to  the  extremities  of  the  then  known  world,  to  assert  the 
glory  of  the  Roman  name,  and  to  fix  the  statue  of  the  God 
Terminus  as  far  East  as  the  shore  of  the  Euphrates.  The 
sons  of  business,  who  do  not  feel  this  spirit,  will  be  slow  to  be- 


186  riiOCION. 

large  a  portion  of  it,  as  the  soldiers  of  Paulus  Emilias,  Lucul- 
lus,  or  Crassus. 

FRANCE  is,  probably,  the  most  populous  of  European  states, 
if  we  except  the  wandering  tribes  subject  to  Russia.  It  is  the 
only  state  in  which  the  sword  is  the  only  trade.  Commerce  has 
not  a  single  ship  ;  arts  and  manufactures  exist  in  ruins  and  memory 
only;  credit  is  a  spectre  that  haunts  its  burying  place  ;  justice 
has  fallen  on  its  own  sword ;  and  liberty,  after  being  sold  to 
Islimaelites,  is  stripped  of  its  bloody  garments  to  disguise  its 
robbers.  A  people,  vain  enough  to  be  satisfied  with  the  name  of 
liberty,  are  called  free,  and  the  fervours  of  its  spirit  are  roused 
to  bind  other  nations  in  chains. 

FROM  all  these  circumstances  thus  singularly  combined,  the 
whole  physical  force  of  France  is  its  political  force.  There  is 
not  a  vein  nor  a  purse,  that  its  gigantick  despotism  cannot  open 
at  pleasure. 

IT  is  impossible  that  means  so  vast  should  be  possessed, 
without  the  desire  to  employ  them.  The  obstacle  to  their 
successful  employment  is  England :  in  all  her  ambitious  at 
tempts,  she  stands  in  her  way.  She  stands  like  a  necro 
mancer,  herself  invulnerable,  and  by  her  spells  the  giant  France 
is  smitten  with  a  palsy.  With  a  spirit  less  generous  than  her 
courage,  and  sometimes  with  an  attention  to  objects  unworthy 
of  her  situation,  England  stands  the  bulwark  of  the  civilized 
world,  the  only  obstacle  to  the  universal  despotism  of  France. 

EVERY  thing,  therefore,  concurs  to  give  activity  to  French 
influence.  Her  ambition,  that  seeks  territorial  aggrandizement 
in  all  parts  of  the  earth,  and  the  impediments  that  the  naval 
power  of  Great  Britain  every  where  throws  in  her  way,  create 
the  necessity,  the  motive,  and  the  means  of  influence.  Being 
inferiour  at  sea,  she  tries  to  gain  friends  or  to  subdue  allies  on 
the  shore  of  every  sea.  Accordingly,  in  Italy  she  obliges  the 
Genoese,  the  Tuscans,  and  the  Romans  to  exclude  the  ships 
and  manufactures  of  England  from  their  ports.  She  will  exact 
the  like  terms  from  the  emperour  and  from  Portugal.  She  will 
never  cease  to  stir  up  the  jealousy  and  ambition  of  the  em 
perour  Paul,  till  he  has  forced  the  Turks  to  banish  the  English 
from  the  Mediterranean.  Egypt  is  seized  to  secure  a  station 
on  the  land,  that  may  finally  expel  the  English  from  India. 


PHOCIOX.  187 

Popular  passions  are  courted  in  America,  that  they  may  ob 
struct  first,  and  then  subvert  and  revolutionize  the  govern 
ment.  Credit,  publick  and  private,  is  an  anti-Galilean  interest : 
by  subverting  credit  and  abolishing  debts,  British  hostility  is 
ensured,  British  commerce  excluded.  Besides,  French  islands 
in  every  war  are  destitute  of  the  protection  of  a  naval  force : 
they  are  forced  to  depend  on  the  resources  of  their  own  soil, 
and  on  the  supplies  that  the  United  States  will  furnish.  The 
neutrality,  and  still  more  the  friendship  and  co-operation  of 
the  United  States,  will  be  sufficient  to  preserve  their  colonies, 
and,  eventually,  to  turn  the  scale  of  power,  in  the  contest  for 
empire,  in  favour  of  France.  Having  no  trade  of  her  own, 
she  is  our  customer,  not  our  rival :  her  publick  ships,  fugitives 
on  the  ocean,  are  seldom  its  tyrants.  She  is  interested,  and 
has  the  opportunity,  to  foment  the  passions,  which  arise  in 
America  from  the  use  and,  too  frequently,  from  the  abuse  of 
the  British  dominion  of  the  sea. 

Is  it  then  difficult  to  explain  by  this  theory  all  the  conduct 
of  France  and  her  emissaries,  and  the  co-operation  of  her 
partisans  in  America  ?  She  has  exerted  her  diplomatick  skill  to 
seize  Louisiana,  Florida,  and  Canada,  and  employed  her  Genets 
to  enlist  men  in  our  back  country  to  occupy  them.  She  was, 
in  1783,  averse  to  our  aggrandizement,  lest  it  should  make  us 
strong  enough  to  stand  alone,  and  to  do  without  her  aid.  She 
has  opposed  every  step  towards  the  stability  of  our  govern 
ment,  and  for  the  establishment  of  its  resources  and  credit. 
Her  emissaries,  in  1783,  opposed  the  grant  to  the  army,  wish 
ing  to  foment  factions  and  divisions  ;  in  1787,  the  federal  con 
stitution  ;  in  1789,  the  funding  system.  She  has  been  leagued 
with  every  faction,  as  Fauchet's  intercepted  letter  shews. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  the  jacobin  gazettes  are  in  her  pay. 
The  despatches  from  Mr.  Gerry,  Marshall,  and  Pinckney, 
shew  that  she  relies  on  her  power  over  the  constituted  powers 
of  the  United  States.  She  has  interfered  in  our  elections  ;  and 
she  needs  us  as  instruments  of  her  hatred  of  England  too 
much  to  lose  a  moment,  .or  any  practicable  means,  or  to  for 
bear  any  expense,  that  will  secure  the  preponderance  ef  her 
influence  in  our  counsels. 


[    188    ] 

THE  NEW  ROMANS. 
N°.  I. 

First  published  in  the  Palladium,  September,  1S01. 

1  O  raise  curiosity,  wonder,  and  terrour,  is  the  ordinary  effect 
of  great  political  events.  All  these,  but  especially  wonder, 
have  been  produced  by  the  progress  of  the  French  revolution. 
To  wonder  is  not  the  way  to  grow  wise  :  to  extract  wisdom 
from  experience,  we  must  ponder  and  examine  ;  we  must 
search  for  the  plan  which  regulates  political  conduct,  and  its 
ultimate  design.  To  know  what  is  done,  without  knowing  why 
it  is  done,  and  with  what  sjiirit  it  was  undertaken,  is  knowing 
nothing  :  it  is  no  better  than  laborious  ignorance  and  studious 
errour.  Such  has  been  the  crude  mass  of  newspaper  informa 
tion,  the  blind  and  undistinguishing  admiration  of  French  vic 
tories.  It  would  be  difficult  to  understand  all  that  it  is  pro 
fitable  to  know,  in  regard  to  these  surprising  events,  if  history 
did  not  teach  us,  that  like  actors  and  like  scenes  have  been 
exhibited  in  ancient  days,  and  that  we  may,  if  we  will,  learn 
wisdom  from  the  sad  experience  of  the  nations  which  have 
gone  before  us. 

SINCE  the  Romans,  no  nation  has  appeared  on  the  stage  of 
human  affairs,  with  a  character  completely  military,  except  the 
French  ;  and  that  character  was  mingled  with  the  commercial, 
until  the  revolution. 

WITH  less  than  half  a  million  of  citizens  in  her  whole  ter 
ritory,  according  to  the  census  or  enumeration  preserved  by 
Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  Rome,  soon  after  the  expulsion  of 
her  kings,  was  ready  to  commence  the  conquest  of  Italy,  a 
country  scarcely  less  populous  than  France.  It  was,  however, 
divided  into  petty  states,  many  of  which  were  as  numerous,  as. 
brave,  and  as  warlike  as  the  Romans  ;  but  there  was  an  im 
mense  difference  in  their  national  character  and  maxims  of 
state.  The  citizens  of  Rome  were  all  soldiers  ;  they  had  no 
pay  ;  rll  that  rewarded  their  toils  in  war  was  pillage.  Poor 


THE  NEW  ROMANS.  189 

as  they  were,  and  bands  of  robbers  are  ever  poor,  the  spoils  of 
an  enemy's  camp,  or  the  division  of  conquered  lands,  was  am 
ple  reward  for  a  fortnight's  campaign.  Their  enemies  were 
near  at  hand  and  ever  ready  for  combat ;  of  course,  the  term  of 
service  was  short,  but  the  calls  for  it  were  frequent.  In  Rome, 
therefore,  there  was  but  one  trade,  and  that  was  war :  all  were 
soldiers.  Accordingly,  Rome  could  array  sixty  thousand  of  the 
firmest  infantry  in  the  world,  while  she  had  not  five  hundred 
thousand  citizens  ;  a  province  in  Italy  with  a  million  did  not 
offer  to  resist  one  demi-brigade  of  French  soldiers.  What  a 
prodigious  difference  !  Holland  is  now  kept  in  subjection  by 
twenty  thousand  French  troops,  and  its  miserable  people  are 
ground  to  powder  to  pay  and  clothe  these  ragged  masters  for 
the  trouble  they  take  to  oppress  them. 

ONE  eighth  of  the  population  of  Rome  were  soldiers,  the 
best  in  the  world ;  the  United  States,  with  not  less  than  five 
million  five  hundred  thousand  people,  are  pronounced  by  the 
democrats,  to  be  beggared  and  ruined  to  such  a  degree,  that 
the  children  in  every  farm  house  will  go  supperless  to  bed  to 
maintain  three  thousand:  nay,  that  this  STANDING  ARMY  of 
three  thousand  was  raised  with  the  design,  and  possesses  the 
force  and  means,  as  well  as  disposition,'  to  enslave  the  people 
and  to  set  up  a  monarchy  in  America.  France  is  exceedingly 
populous,  and  cannot  need,  if  she  could  bear,  as  great  a  draft 
from  her  numbers  as  Rome ;  no  modern  nation  has,  however, 
come  so  near  being,  like  the  Romans,  all  soldiers,  as  the  French. 
It  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  state  the  proportion  of  soldiers  to 
other  citizens.  It  has  generally  been  thought,  that  Germany 
had  soldiers  in  proportion  of  one  to  a  hundred.  The  distresses 
of  Austria  and  the  zeal  of  the  Hungarians  may  have  doubled 
the  proportion,  during  the  most  trying  periods  of  the  war  with 
France.  There  is,  however,  reason  to  believe,  that,  in  the  ener 
gies  of  Robespiereism,  France,  with  her  sixteen  armies,  ar 
rayed  within  and  without  her  territory  nearly  one  twelfth  of  her 
vast  population.  Without  a  merchant  ship,  her  navy  hauled 
up,  arts  stagnant,  capital  spent,  skill  occupied  in  making  arms, 
Lyons  blown  up  with  gunpowder,  the  only  place  to  find  busi- 


190  THE  NEW  ROMANS. 

ness,  to  get  bread,  fame,  and  promotion,  was  in  the  army  :  no 
modern  state  has  been  so  nearly  all  military.  This  was  not 
the  effect  of  her  momentary  distresses  ;  it  was  the  plan  of  her 
government,  and  a  consequence  of  the  character  of  her  people. 
Her  government,  ever  changing  hands,  was  ever  the  same  in 
spirit.  Like  Rome,  who  extended  her  conquests,  while  she 
was  convulsed  with  civil  war,  every  change  has  breathed  new 
fury  into  the  military  enthusiasm  of  France.  One  passion, 
like  a  tyrant,  has  banished  all  others :  it  is  the  only  one,  that 
has  aliment,  or  finds  scope  for  its  exercise.  We  see  how  pre 
valent  this  passion  is  in  every  French  bosom ;  for  the  emigrants 
who  came  here  and  to  England,  bespattered  with  the  blood  and 
brains  of  their  fathers,  and  wives,  and  kindred,  strut,  on  the 
news  -of  their  victories,  as  if  they  were  an  inch  taller  on  the 
success  of  their  oppressors,  and  they  weep  and  mourn,  when 
their  fleets  or  armies  are  beaten.  In  France,  the  age  of  chi 
valry  is  not  gone  :  a  spirit,  more  ardent  than  the  crusades 
engendered,  glows  there,  which  burns  not  for  liberty,  but  for 
conquest.  The  money-getting  and  money-loving  Dutch  and 
Americans  can  scarcely  credit  the  influence  of  this  passion. 
Doubts  of  this  sort  are  plausible  errours ;  and  they  oppose 
metaphysicks,  as  to  what  ought  to  govern  men,  to  the  confound 
ing  and  decisive  authority  of  experience,^  which  determines 
what  does  govern  men. 

IT  might,  if  it  were  necessary,  be  shewn,  that  the  chivalry 
of  the  military  spirit  ever  was  predominant  in  that  country  : 
all  that  was  respected  was  military.  The  lower  classes  were 
emulous  of  this  spirit,  and  they  allowed  that  gentility  consisted 
in  bearing  arms  :  the  common  soldiers  fought  duels,  affected 
to  be  men  of  honour,  and  gloried  in  the  distinction  of  wearing 
ragged  uniform  and  eating  bad  provisions  for  the  grand  mon- 
arque.  All  this  happened  before  the  revolution.  It  might 
be  added,  that  all  trades,  that  merchandise,  and  a  condition  of 
labour  were  ever  held  base  and  degrading.  It  happened  that 
the  merchants,  to  whom  honour  was  not  ascribed,  wanted 
honour  and  integrity.  They  were  brought  down,  as  might 
naturally  be  expected,  to  the  rank  in  which  they  were  held, 


THE  NEW  ROMANS.  191 

There  was  nothing  that  ought  to  rival  the  splendour  of  military 
distinction  ;  there  was  nothing  in  the  state  that  did  rival  it.  All 
other  passions  were  quenched  ;  all  the  energies  of  the  human 
character  were  concentred  in  the  passion  for  arms.  The 
revolution  came  and  sublimated  all  the  passions  to  fury  and 
extravagance :  it  gave  an  immediate  preponderance,  nay,  a 
sole  dominion  to  the  love  of  glory.  The  national  guards  were 
formed,  and  their  epaulets  and  swords  were  worth  more  in 
their  eyes  than  liberty. 

THE  bloody  struggle  that  has  buried  arts,  and  institutions, 
and  wealth,  and  thrones,  and  churches  of  God  under  heaps  of 
cinders,  has  given  that  strength  to  this  passion,  which  might 
be  expected  from  partial  indulgence  and  strict  discipline. 

VERY  early  the  French  perceived  the  affinity  of  their  national 
character  with  that  of  the  Romans ;  though  it  is,  manifestly, 
with  the  Romans  alter  thfcy  were  corrupted  and  had  lost  their 
liberty.  Their  vanity  instantly  prompted  them  to  emulate 
this  model,  and  to  illustrate  this  resemblance :  they  have  been 
vain  of  their  consuls  and  tribunes,  and  they  have  adopted  the 
haughty  demeanour,  as  well  as  the  insidious  art  of  the  Roman 
senate.  If  modern  nations  are  any  better  than  barbarians, 
they  ought  to  mark  the  spirit  of  these  new  Romans,  and  exert 
in  self-defence  a  spirit  of  intelligence  and  patriotism,  which 
was  wanting  to  the  ancient  world,  and  which  might  have  saved 
them  from  bondage.  It  is  much  to  be  desired,  that  your  learn 
ed  correspondent  would  pursue  his  comparison  of  the  French 
and  Roman  fiolicy.  It  is  what  popular  prejudice  needs,  and,  I 
perceive  by  the  Aurora,  it  is  what  jacobinism  dreads. 


THE  NEW  ROMANS. 

N°.  II. 

CONQUEST  being  the  object  of  the  Romans,  and  the  spi 
rit  of  the  people  being,  in  a  high  degree,  martial,  the  next  care 
was  to  train  up  men  to  be  conquering  soldiers.  They  believed, 
i  hat  they  could;  and  that  they  ought  to  achieve  more  than  other 


192  THE  NEW  ROMANS. 

soldiers ;  and,  therefore,  they  cheerfully  submitted  to  the  augr 
mentation  of  labour,  and  self-denial,  and  danger,  that  this  pre 
eminence  of  glory  and  courage  were  bound  to  sustain.  Their 
patriotism  was  little  less  than  self-love  :  they  heard  of  nothing 
but  what  was  due  to  their  country  ;  they  lived,  and  acted,  and 
were  bound  by  oath,  if  necessary,  to  die,  for  it.  The  republick 
was  a  sort  of  divinity,  which  commanded  their  reverence  and 
affection,  and  which  alone  conferred  the  rewards  that  were 
proper  for  heroes.  This  sentiment  was  strengthened  by  the 
rigour  of  the  maxims,  which  then  regulated  war:  to  be  con 
quered,  or  even  to  be  a  prisoner,  was  to  be  annihilated  as  a  Ro 
man,  and  for  ever  deprived  of  an  inheritance  of  glory  more 
precious  than  life.  Religion  added  force  to  these  popular  sen 
timents,  and  a  Roman  false  to  them  was  more  abhorred  than 
an  Arnold. 

SUCH  was  the  force  of  this  complex  and  skilful  machinery, 
that  the  Roman  soldiers  were  heroes :  they  were  all  that  men 
could  be.  Their  country  was  a  camp ;  and  peace,  a  time  not  of 
rest  but  of  preparation  and  exercise.  They  were  taught  to  carry 
vast  burdens,  to  march  loaded  like  packhorses,  to  take  fifteen 
days  provisions,  to  transport  weapons  heavier  than  their  enemies* 
entrenching  tools,  and  much  of  the  equipage  of  war,  which  is 
now  conveyed  by  thousands  of  waggons.  This  habitual  endur 
ance  of  hardship  made  it  familiar,  hardened  them  to  the  rigour 
of  climates  and  the  most  violent  efforts  :  they  were  seldom 
sick.  Their  celerity  in  marching,  their  perfect  discipline, 
their  promptness  to  rally  after  a  repulse,  their  unwearied  per 
severance  in  battle,  were  as  extraordinary  and  as  terrible  to  the 
foe  as  their  heroick  courage.  They  claimed  to  be,  and  their 
enemies  admitted  that  they  were,  a  superiour  race  of  men. 
This  lofty  opinion  realized  itself:  they  did  not  rely  on  num 
bers,  but  thought  it  enough  to  send  a  popular  general  with  two 
legions,  ( not  sixteen  thousand  men)  to  overthrow  the  empires 
of  Tigranes  or  Jugurtha :  they  expected,  and  experience 
justified  their  expectation,  that  the  terrour  of  the  Roman  name 
would  be  more  effectual  than  legions.  Accordingly,  the  sub 
jects  and  allies,  and  even  the  children,  of  the  invaded  kings, 


THE  NEW  ROMANS.  193 

seldom  failed  to  desert  his  cause,  who  was  the  enemy  of  "Rome, 
and,  of  course,  devoted  to  ruin. 

IF  this  view  of  the  military  character  of  Rome  has  not  led 
the  mind  of  the  reader  to  mark  its  resemblance  with  the 
French,  it  is  not  because  the  latter  have  omitted  any  means  in 
their  command  to  form  themselves  on  the  Roman  model.  As 
the  French  soldiers  compose  a  large  part  of  the  able-bodied 
citizens,  they  are  a  better  sort  of  men  than  are  found  in  the 
ranks  of  their  enemies.  In  England,  for  example,  a  prosper 
ous  commerce  and  vast  manufactures  leave  only  refuse  and 
scum  for  their  armies ;  the  French  soldiers  are  really  French 
men,  and  animated  with  a  large  portion  of  that  fiery,  impetu 
ous  zeal  for  the  glory  of  the  nation,  which  is  so  remarkably 
characteristick.  It  is  a  subject,  on  which  no  Frenchman,  how 
ever  his  country  may  have  misused  him,  can  be  cold.  All  that 
taxes,  that  confiscation,  or  that  foreign  spoil  could  supply,  has 
been  promised  as  reward ;  and  all  that  art  or  eloquence  could 
do,  has  been  used  as  incitement.  In  France,  too,  as  in  Rome, 
there  is  no  claim  of  power  and  distinction,  but  what  is  derived 
from  the  sword  :  the  consuls  were  generals,  and  all  the  offices 
were  considered  as  in  a  degree  military :  no  man  can  be  great 
in  France  unless  he  is  a  great  general.  The  abbe  Sieyes  has 
been  made  a  consul,  and,  for  wisdom  in  the  cabinet,  report 
assigns  him  the  first  place  :  when  Caligula  made  his  horse  a 
consul,  he  did  not  make  him  as  able  and  learned  as  Sieyes,  but 
he  invested  him  with  the  exact  measure  of  power  that  Buona 
parte  allows  to  his  colleague.  The  army,  conscious  of  being 
the  fountain  of  power,  would  as  soon  submit  to  the  authority  of 
a  woman,  as  of  any  man  eminent  in  any  other  art  than  the  mili 
tary,  and  ignorant  of  that.  When,  therefore,  all  glory,  all  dis 
tinction  in  the  state,  and  the  exclusive  title  to  a  share  in  the 
government  of  it,  are  confined  to  the  military,  no  wonder  that 
art  has  been  carried  to  a  degree  of  perfection  far  beyond  the 
attainments  of  the  rival  states. 

IF  those  states  were  equally  emulous  of  glory,  if  their  sub 
jects  were  all  soldiers,  and  if  all  arts  were  held  in  contempt 
that  were  not  subservient  to  arms,  they  would  be  on  a  footing 


194  THE  NEW  ROMANS. 

with  the  French.  But,  since  the  discovery  of  America,  the 
systems  of  all  the  European  governments  have  been  commer 
cial  :  they  have  patronised  the  arts  that  would  procure  riches, 
as  preferable  to  those  which  confer  power.  The  publick  sen 
timent  of  every  other  nation  has  been  rather  that  of  avarice 
than  of  ambition.  The  military  profession  has  been,  in  conse 
quence,  separated  from  every  other,  and,  in  some  measure, 
degraded  in  estimation,  as  the  only  one  that  earns  nothing, 
and  that  is  corrupted  by  idleness.  The  rest  of  the  society  has 
become  unwarlike,  unfit  for  toil,  insensible  to  glory.  The 
citizen,  attached  to  his  ease,  his  property  and  family,  considers 
it  as  both  ruin  and  disgrace  to  become  a  soldier.  Is  it  strange, 
then,  that  the  entire  mass  of  France  should  overpower  its  ene 
mies  ?  From  the  difference  of  character  and  situation,  no  other 
decision  could  have  happened,  than  that  which  has  happened. 

FRANCE,  subject  to  the  most  energetick  despotism  in  the 
world,  poured  forth  her  myriads  in  arms.  Formerly,  a  few 
strong  fortresses,  or  a  ridge  of  mountains,  were  called  barriers  ; 
and  to  subdue  a  country  these  obstacles  must  be  overcome  : 
many  campaigns  were  made  by  the  famous  Marlborough  to 
break  the  line  of  the  iron  frontier  of  France,  as  the  Nether 
lands  have  been  called.  The  French  have  changed  this  sys 
tem  of  war  in  a  very  extraordinary  manner.  By  the  immensity 
of  the  mass  of  their  armies,  by  their  great  e-xtent,  occupying 
the  whole  frontier  of  an  enemy's  country,  by  the  astonishingly 
numerous  artillery,  the  rapid  marches,  the  attacks  made  in 
concert  in  many  places  at  once,  from  the  lower  Rhine  to  the 
Mincio  and  Adige,  though  at  the  distance  of  one  hundred  and 
fifty  leagues,  by  the  unwearied  renewal  of  those  attacks,  if  the 
first  fails,  and  by  the  endless  reinforcements  of  fresh  troops,  a 
state  is  now  subdued,  as  soon  as,  formerly,  Marlborough  could 
take  a  town  :  the  field  of  battle  extends  over  several  provinces  : 
the  map  of  a  country  is  not  extensive  enough  for  the  plan  of 
a  camp  :  all  the  heights  and  commanding  positions  are  occu 
pied  in  such  a  manner,  that  the  two  wings  of  the  army  are, 
perhaps,  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  apart :  if  one  of  the  ene 
my's  posts  can  be  passed  by,  or  his  forces  are  dislodged  from 


THE  NEW  ROMANS.  195 

them,  he  must  fall  back  to  take  the  next  best  position  in  his 
rear,  and  thus  a  country  falls  in  a  day,  and,  perhaps,  without  a 
battle. 

IT  is  evident,  that  this  new  method  of  employing  so  vast 
armies,  and  this  wasteful  activity  of  manoeuvring  and  fighting 
incessantly,  by  which  a  campaign  has  become  unusually  de 
structive  of  human  life,  will  require  Europe  to  be  more  mili 
tary  than  ever;  all  must  be  soldiers,  or  all  will  be  slaves:  and 
this  boasted  and  boastful  revolution  will  tend  to  hasten  and  to 
fix  for  ages  both  barbarism  and  despotism. 


THE  NEW  ROMANS. 
N°.  111. 

ART  cannot  soon  form  the  character  of  a  nation,  nor  can 
violence  soon  change  it.  Of  all  the  barbarous  nations,  the 
Franks  were  the  most  martial.  Fourteen  hundred  years  ago, 
they  formed  their  petty  tribes  into  a  conquering  nation.  The 
greatness  of  the  nation  early  inspired  ambition,  which  several 
able  and  warlike  princes  inflamed  into  a  national  enthusiasm. 
While  most  other  European  states  were  feeble  by  their  divi 
sions,  the  French  were  powerful,  and  aspired  to  dominion  and 
influence  over  other  nations.  More  than  a  thousand  years  ago, 
their  kings  led  armies  into  Italy,  and  parcelled  out  its  govern 
ments,  as  Buonaparte  has  done.  The  splendour  of  the  reign 
of  Charlemagne  fascinated  the  French,  as  much  as  their  late 
victories,  and  established  the  pretensions  of  their  vanity  to  be 
the  great  nation,  the  arbiters  of  Europe.  The  compactness  as 
well  as  immensity  of  their  force  engaged  them  in  every  war 
that  occurred.  We  know  the  power  that  habit  has  to  form  the 
characters  of  individual  men  and  whole  nations :  by  continual 
wars,  the  French  lost  nothing  of  the  military  spirit  of  their 
barbarous  ancestors.  The  crusades  and  the  age  of  chivalry 
exalted  this  spirit  to  its  highest  degree,  and  greatly  distinguish 
ed  the  French  among  the  crusaders.  The  Edwards,  and  still 
more  Henry  the  seventh,  of  England,  and  afterwards  the  wise 


196  THE  NEW  ROMANS. 

Elizabeth,  introduced  commerce  and  the  arts,  and  gave  a  new 
turn  to  the  enterprise  of  the  English  nation.  It  may  be  con 
jectured  with  some  appearance  of  probability,  that  the  insular 
position  of  England  very  early  determined  the  English  charac 
ter  towards  the  arts  of  peace.  As  soon  as  the  struggles  be 
tween  the  king  and  the  barons,  and  the  rival  houses  of  York 
and  Lancaster,  afforded  any  respite  from  arms,  and  any  in- 
teriour  order  in  the  kingdom,  two  consequences  resulted :  a 
greater  portion  of  the  English  inhabited  the  country,  the 
country  being  as  safe  to  inhabit  as  the  cities  ;  the  yeomanry, 
or  cultivators  of  land,  increased  in  wealth  and  influence  in  the 
state,  and  constituted  the  mass  and  body  of  the  nation :  hus 
bandry  forms  a  class  of  men,  and  a  determined  character  for  the 
class,  very  unlike  that  of  soldiers.  A  second  consequence, 
and  connected  with  the  former,  was,  that  the  English  were 
afterwards  engaged  less  actively  and,  indeed,  less  dangerously 
in  wars  than  their  rivals :  except  the  incursions  of  the  Scotch, 
their  wars  wTere  abroad,  they  were  only  occasional  and  of  short 
duration.  When  the  reign  of  Henry  the  seventh,  and  the  dis 
covery  of  America,  awakened  the  ardour  of  discovery  and 
commercial  enterprise,  this  new  propensity  found  little  rival- 
ship  or  impediment  from  the  military  passion,  and,  as  it  was 
fostered  afterwards  by  Elizabeth  and  the  Stuarts,  the  English 
soon  became  a  shopkeeping  nation,  line  nation  bouti(juiere^  as  the 
French  contemptuously  denominate  them.  Hence,  the  passion 
to  acquire  is  characteristick  of  the  English;  the  passion  to 
rule  is  predominant  with  the  French  :  the  one  seeks  gain  ;  the 
other  glory. 

THE  causes  which  have  led  to  this  national  character,  not 
only  lie  deep  in  the  most  remote  antiquity,  but  events  of  a 
more  recent  date  have  contributed  to  decide  and  for  ever  to  fix 
their  preponderance. 

1  HE  ravages  of  national  wars  frequently  exposed  the  coun 
try  people  to  spoil  and  violence  ;  but  the  great  lords  and  feudal 
chiefs  claimed  and  exercised  the  right  of  private  vengeance. 
Hence,  animosities  and  endless  civil  wars  desolated  the  con 
tinental  states  of  Europe.  The  only  places  of  security  were 


THE  NEW  ROMANS.  197 

the  fortified  towns.  Thus  it  happened,  that  the  countiy  was 
inhabited  by  a  wretched,  defenceless  peasantry,  without  charac 
ter  or  spirit,  and  subject  to  the  corvee  or  ruinous  slavery  of 
performing  certain  labour  for  their  lords,  and  to  a  whole  sys 
tem  of  feudal  exactions  and  oppressions  so  heavy  and  so  dispi 
riting,  as  to  prevent  their  having  any  character  of  their  own, 
or  any  influence  on  that  of  the  nation.  Indeed,  emulation  will 
be  directed  towards  such  qualities  as  are  esteemed ;  and  there 
was  nothing  in  the  condition  of  the  labouring  class  to  gratify 
pride  or  to  inspire  it.  The  soldiers  only  were  respected  or 
imitated :  they  gave  the  tone  and  the  fashion  to  every  tiling  in 
France.  Cities  were  not  much  occupied  in  arts,  and  not  at  all 
in  commerce.  They  were  crowded  with  retainers  to  princes 
and  nobles,  who  even  wore  their  livery  and  fed  at  their  tables : 
they  followed  them  in  war,  and  their  multitude  was  the  rule, 
by  which  the  magnificence  and  power  of  the  nobles  was  mea 
sured  and  displayed. 

THUS  the  taste  and  manners  of  the  French  were  not  formed, 
like  the  English,  in  solitude  and  by  the  occupations  of  country 
life.  Fashion  governed  the  crowds  in  cities,  and  the  nobles 
and  their  martial  followers  alone  gave  law  to  fashion  :  arms 
engrossed  all  thoughts,  the  business  of  war  and  the  conversa 
tion  of  peace. 

WHEN  Louis  the  eleventh  humbled  the  great  lords  of  France, 
and  established  a  standing  army,  his  sagacity  discerned,  that 
this  leading  propensity  of  the  French  character  was  to  be  used 
as  the  instrument  to  keep  the  nation  in  subjection.  His  succes 
sors  cherished  the  military  sense  of  honour,  as  the  basis  and 
guardian  principle  of  the  monarchy.  The  noblesse  despised 
trade,  and  an  artisan,  however  ingenious,  was  one  of  the  jieujilc, 
or  populace  or  mob. 

FROM  hence  it  followed,  that  arms  alone  were  honoured :  a 
rich  man  couid  not  pretend  to  be  a  gentleman  till  he  had  serv 
ed  a  campaign ;  and  the  French  noblesse  preserved  undimi- 
nished,  the  gallantry,  the  impetuous  valour  thut  courted  danger, 
which  so  much  distinguished  the  age  of  the  crusades  and  of 
chivalry  :  that  gallant  race  was  extinct,  excepting  in  France. 


198  THE  NEW  ROMANS. 

THE  revolution  began,  and  was  in  a  great  measure  effected, 
not  by  quenching  this  chivalrous  spirit,  but  by  awakening  it  in 
the  rabble.  They  were  sensible  to  honour  and  shame,  and 
they  claimed  to  be  as  brave,  and,  therefore,  as  much  gentlemen 
as  the  noblesse.  This  emulation,  the  more  lively  for  being 
newly  inspired,  animated  the  attack  of  the  bastile,  arrayed  the 
national  guards,  and  spread  the  power  of  enthusiasm,  like  the 
electrick  fluid,  over  all  France.  The  leaders  of  the  revolution, 
as  skilful  to  guide  as  to  excite  the  popular  ferment,  availed 
themselves  of  these  new  energies  to  raise  armies,  and,  after 
having  subverted  the  monarchy,  to  find  work  for  them  in  a 
war  with  Austria.  The  progress  of  this  war,  it  was  foreseen, 
would  throw  all  the  political  and  physical  power  of  France  into 
their  hands,  as  the  fervour  of  the  revolution  had  already  given 
them  absolute  power  over  opinion.  Never,  in  the  history  of 
mankind,  did  the  rulers  of  a  nation  possess  an  influence  so 
combined  and  so  unlimited.  Robespiere  held  all  France  in  his 
hand  as  a  machine,  he  wielded  it  as  a  weapon,  while  the  empe- 
rour  and  the  king  of  Great  Britain,  whom  the  French  call 
despots,  could  command  only  the  surplus  of  the  revenues,  and 
some  fragments  of  the  force  of  their  states. 

BUT  the  manner,  in  which  this  gigantick  despotism  has  pro 
ceeded,  will  best  illustrate  the  popular  sentiment,  from  which 
it  sprung,  and  the  end,  which  alone  it  deems  worthy  of  its 
ambition  and  its  efforts. 


THE  NEW  ROMANS. 

N°.  IV. 

IT  has  been  attempted  to  shew,  that  military  glory  has  ever 
been  the  first  object  of  desire,  the  most  fascinating  claim  to 
superiour  consideration  in  France. 

SAVAGES  take  their  character  from  their  situation  as  indi 
viduals^  from  their  appetites  and  their  wants,  rather  than  from 
any  sympathy  of  national  sentiment :  hunger  makes  them  hun- 


THE  NEW  ROMANS.  199 

ters ;  fear,  and,  sometimes,  revenge  makes  them  warriours. 
But  in  polished  societies,  men  derive  their  national  cast  from 
their  intercourse  with  one  another.  Absolute  want  is  felt  by 
few,  and  those  who  feel  it,  are  without  influence  on  the  socie 
ty.  Man  ceases  to  be  merely  an  individual ;  he  models  his 
desires  and  his  sentiments  according  to  his  relation  to  the 
national  body,  of  which  he  is  a  member.  That  class  in  society 
which  is  the  most  respected,  is  the  most  imitated.  It  has  been 
shewn,  that  the  class  of  artisans,  or  that  of  merchants,  did  not 
hold  that  envied  place  in  France,  but  that  the  men  of  the 
sword  did. 

THIS  being  the  national  sentiment,  it  is  obvious,  that  the 
government  could  not  disobey,  much  less  offend  or  shock,  that 
sentiment,  without  losing,  in  a  moment,  all  ks  hold  on  the 
popular  affections.  A  dastardly  policy,  a  dread  of  war  with 
Austria  or  England,  would  have  blasted  the  new  leaders  with 
disgrace.  Taken,  as  they  were,  from  the  lowest  classes  of  the 
nation,  they  would  have  been  charged  with  having  souls  as 
mean  as  their  condition,  too  mean  to  govern  a  republick,  all 
whose  citizens  claimed  an  equal  rank  with  their  high-spirited 
nobles,  and  who  required,  that  the  great  nation  should  adopt 
the  lofty  pretensions,  and  display  the  impetuous  courage,  of  its 
military  class.  All  the  classes  oF  society  claimed  an  equality, 
and  to  be  at  the  top,  and  thus  the  depression  of  ranks  instantly 
produced  an  elevation  of  national  spirit.  Believing  that  they 
were  all  sovereign,  and  that  France,  by  raising  its  spirit,  had 
raised  its  power,  they  were  anxious  to  make  such  a  display  of 
it,  as  should  astonish  and  confound  kings,  whom  they  hated, 
and  the  English  nation,  whom  they  envied  and  feared.  They 
considered  their  new  liberty,  as  a  new  rank,  and  the  highest 
rank,  which,  of  course,  in  their  eyes,  was  military ;  and  that 
this  sudden  dignity  was  neither  solidly  established,  nor  suffici 
ently  enjoyed,  unless  the  jiower  of  France  was  displayed  in  a 
manner  to  excite  both  terrour  and  wonder,  to  make  kings 
quake  and  their  subjects  admire.  How  dear  a  triumph  for 
republicanism  !  How  lofty  a  stage  for  equality  I 


200  THE  NEW  ROMANS. 

INDEED  it  is  not  in  the  nature  of  things,  that  any  strong- 
popular  impulse  should  be  satisfied  without  action.  The 
more  sudden,  surprising,  and  violent  the  action,  the  more  likely 
is  it  to  gratify  and  to  prolong  this  impulse.  All  democracies 
are  governments  by  popular  passions.  These  cannot  exist  and 
be  at  rest ;  they  cannot  be  indulged,  and  yet  kept  within  the 
limits  of  moderation  or  principle.  They  sweep  like  whirl 
winds,  that  are  not  stopped  by  desolation,  but  as  they  destroy, 
they  level  obstacles  and  are  quickened  in  their  progress.  They 
pour  like  torrents  from  the  mounudns,  and,  if  they  reach  the 
plains  in  their  fulness,  they  are  inundations  unconfined  by 
banks  :  the  violence  of  each  soon  scoops  for  itself  a  narrow 
channel,  and  that  is  a  dry  one. 

ONE  auxiliary  cause  of  the  military  passion  of  the  French 
has  not  been  mentioned  in  its  proper  place  ;  it  must  not  be 
omitted  in  the  examination  of  characters.  The  English,  their 
great  rivals,  ever  thought  themselves  entitled  to  take  rank  as 
a.  free  nation.  The  French  could  not  vie  with  the  English  for 
liberty  ;  but  vanity,  repelled  from  one  course,  sought  and  found 
relief  in  another :  we  are  the  most  gallant  people  of  Europe : 
these  islanders,  proud  of  their  liberty,  shall  not  be  permitted 
to  despise,  they  shall  fear  us.  Pride,  hot  in  the  race  of  emu 
lation,  and  smarting  with  the  wound  of  its  imputed  degradation 
by  slavery  under  an  absolute  monarch,  grew  prouder,  when  it 
wore  its  armour  and  surveyed  its  trophies.  In  that  contempla 
tion,  every  Frenchman  stretched  into  a  giant,  and  felt  per 
suaded,  that  France  alone  was  peopled  by  the  race  of  Anak. 

ALL  this  military  fervour,  with  all  its  strength  and  all  its 
blindness,  was  transferred  by  the  revolution  into  the  people, 
la  Bourgeoisie^  who  claimed  to  be  nobles,  and  who  knew  no 
other  way  to  display  it,  than  the  usual  and  acknowledged  one 
for  men  of  rank,  by  military  distinction. 

ACCORDINGLY,  in  the  first  era  of  the  revolution,  the  formation 
of  the  national  guards^  and  the  establishment  of  rank  equal  to 
veterans,  awakened  the  sleeping  pride  of  every  heart,  and 
mingled  the  love  of  liberty  with  self-love  too  intimately  to 


THE  NEW  ROMANS.  201 

allow  them  afterwards  to  be  dissociated.  Pride  received  a 
new  impulse  to  its  current,  but  it  ran  in  the  old  channel. 

No  sooner  had  the  revolution  attracted  attention,  than  each 
Frenchman  felt  his  individual  title  to  pre-eminence,  as  well 
as  that  of  the  nation,  to  be  subjected  to  a  trial.  He  now 
claimed  to  be  freer  than  the  free,  to  be  freer  than  an  Eng 
lishman  or  American,  as  he  had  ever  pretended  to  be  the  first 
among  polished  and^  brave  men.  Their  common  sentiment 
was,  of  course,  that  the  friendship  of  those  who  resembled 
them  in  liberty  was  a  debt ;  the  submission  of  those  who 
were  inferiour  to  them  in  force  and  courage,  was  a  decree 
of  fate.  The  supposed  hatred  of  kings,  because  they  had 
made  a  republick,  their  contempt,  because  they  had  made  a 
vile  rabble  rulers,  alike  stimulated  their  national  vanity  to 
assert  claims  that  were  thus  disputed,  and,  if  possible,  to 
make  them  indisputable.  They  perceived,  that  France  was  a 
stage,  and  that  the  curiosity  of  mankind  expected  something 
magnificent  in  the  scenes,  something  preternatural  in  the 
actors,  something  that  would  dazzle  and  astonish  ;  that  would 
make  criticism  distrustful  of  its  rules,  and  awe  contradic 
tion  into  silence. 

THE  revolution  itself  was  one  of  those  portentous,  but  rare 
events,  which  originate  from  the  operation  of  moral  causes, 
from  the  intestine  agitation  of  the  human  mind  ;  a  fermenta 
tive  power,  that  destroys  the  forms  and  the  essences  of  the 
political  body,  and  yet  in  its  progress  separates  a  larger  por 
tion  of  that  pungent  spirit,  that  was  formerly  the  hidden 
aliment  of  its  life,  and  is  now  its  preservative  from  corrup 
tion.  But,  while  all  France  was  steaming  with  this  pervad 
ing  heat,  and  twitching  with  the  spasms  of  enthusiastick  pas 
sion,  its  popular  leaders,  assuming  imposing  names,  and 
exercising  a  despotism  that  had  neither  known  limits  nor 
definition,  suddenly  found  themselves  invested  with  a  power, 
that  seemed  miraculous.  They  could  lead  the  nation  out 
like  an  intoxicated  giant;  or  like  a  war  elephant  to  tread 
26 


2Q2  THE  NEW  ROMANS. 

down  an  enemy's  ranks,  and  train  him  rather  to  be  furious, 
than  intimidated,  by  his  wounds. 

THE  spirit  of  the  revolution,  like  that  of  the  crusades,  is 
a  fierce  and  troubled  spirit :  and,  like  that,  it  may  take  two 
centuries  to  quiet  it.  The  reformation  of  Luther,  more 
necessary  and  more  salutary,  entailed  three  ages  of  war  upon 
Europe.  It  is  a  prodigious  power,  which  the  monarchy 
could  not  resist ;  but  which  the  chiefs  of  the  military  demo 
cracy  have  successively  attempted  to  guide. 

IT  may  seem  to  most  readers  a  paradox,  that  so  much 
weight  should  be  allowed  to  the  popular  sentiment,  in  a  coun 
try  so  devoted  to  despotism  as  France.  It  should  be  remem 
bered,  that  even  a  despotism  has  but  a  limited  physical 
strength  :  it  must  depend  on  other  props  than  mere  force  ; 
it  must  make  an  auxiliary  of  publick  opinion.  The  grand 
seignior  governs  Turkey  by  the  aid  of  superstition,  more 
than  by  his  janissaries ;  and,  even  in  France,  where  the  peo 
ple  seem  to  be  annihilated,  and  are  nothing  in  the  subordinate 
plans  of  the  government,  the  great  objects  of  policy  must 
be  chosen,  and  conducted,  with  no  small  condescension  to 
their  wishes.  For  instance,  a  peace,  that  should  strip  France 
of  her  conquests,  that  should  tear  the  laurels  from  the  army, 
that  should  expose  the  French  nation  to  any  loss  of  the  repu 
tation  that  victory  has  conferred,  would  shake  the  throne  of 
the  boldest  usurper  that  has  enslaved  them.  The  claims  of 
their  vanity  have  been  exorbitant  from  the  first,  and  every 
new  set  of  tyrants  has  promised  still  further  to  exalt  that 
vanity.  Indeed  they  have  kept  their  word  ! 

IT  is  probable,  that  sensible  Frenchmen  have  long  ago 
discerned,  that  they  did  not  possess  liberty,  and  that  they 
were  not  in  the  road  to  attain  it ;  but  they  appeared  to  be  in 
that  road,  and  that  illusion  concealed  their  chains  and  soothed 
their  sense  of  disappointment.  They  could  bear  it,  that  they 
were  not  freemen,  it  was  what  they  were  used  and  reconcil 
ed  to  ;  but  they  would  not  bear  not  to  be  conquerors.  Their 
love  of  liberty  was  tractable  ;  their  vanity  untractable.  Ac 
cordingly,  they  gloried  in  the  enthusiasm  of  their  efforts  to 


THE  NEW  ROMANS.  203 

expel  the  Prussians,  who,  by  invading,  had  profaned  the  ter 
ritory  of  the  republick  ;  although  no  tyranny  could  be  more 
odious  or  sanguinary  than  that  for  which  they  fought.  They 
have  borne  taxes,  paper  money,  famine,  tyranny  in  all  its 
worst  forms,  not  merely  with  ordinary  patience,  but  with 
alacrity,  because  the  French  nation  struck  Europe  with 
admiration  and  tcrrour.  While  religion  and  morals  took 
flight,  industry  starved,  and  innocence  bled,  national  vanity 
has  had  its  banquets  :  its  frequent  feasts  have  become  its 
ordinary  living,  and  now  it  would  pine  without  a  prnfiismp 
dainties.  * 


THE  NEW  ROMANS. 

N°.  V. 

AMIDST  all  the  confusion  of  the  changes  in  the  govern 
ment  of  France,  the  rulers  have  formed  their  policy  on  the 
basis  of  the  vanity  of  the  nation  :  every  new  set  has  promis 
ed  aggrandizement  and  glory  to  France,  and  the  infliction  of 
a  signal  vengeance  on  its  enemies. 

THIS  constancy  in  adhering  to  the  same  maxims  of  policy, 
while  the  men  at  the  head  of  affairs  were  kings  only  for 
three  months,  may  seem  surprising.  But  Sparta  preserved 
nearly  the  same  character  seven  hundred  years,  though 
many  violent  revolutions  occurred  ;  and  Rome  acted  as  long, 
and  even  more  uniformly,  on  the  strength  of  the  national  sen 
timent,  that  she  could  not  exist  at  all,  unless  as  a  conqueror 
and  mistress  of  the  wrorld  ;  yet  Rome  changed  her  consuls 
yearly.  The  diversity  of  the  character  of  her  magistrates 
was  lost  in  the  uniformity  and  force  of  her  own. 

IN  the  very  beginning  of  the  French  popular  government, 
the  national  vanity  was  soothed  by  the  incense  of  flattery  from 
its  own  demagogues,  and  the  natural  jacobins  of  every  civil 
ized  state.  Addresses  from  clubs,  and  from  individual  incen 


204  THE  NEW  ROMANS. 

diaries  Were  multiplied,  and  graciously  received  at  the  bar  of 
the  convention.  It  seemed  to  be  a  Roman  senate,  sitting 
judicially  to  hear  the  grievances  of  all  nations,  and  to  parcel 
out  the  world  into  provinces.  Anacharsis  Cloots  appeared, 
and  harangued  the  assembly,  as  the  orator  of  the  human 
race.  In  November,  1792,  the  safety  and  independence  of 
all  states  was  formally  attacked  by  the  decree,  that  France 
would  assist  the  rebels  of  all  countries  against  their  govern 
ments.  The  apologists  for  French  extravagances,  after  some 
fruitless  attempts  to  justify  the  principle  of  this  outrage  on 
all  mankind,  have  next  endeavoured  to  palliate  :  they  say, 
less  was  intended  than  the  words  of  the  decree  seem  to  im 
port.  When  the  conduct  of  France  discredited  even  this 
palliation,  it  has  been  since  insisted,  that  the  decree  was 
adopted  in  times  of  violence  and  confusion,  and  that  it  has 
been  formally  annulled.  All  periods  have  been  violent,  and 
marked  with  a  more  than  Roman  contempt  of  the  rights, 
as  well  as  the  opinions  of  mankind.  But  Gregorei,  in  his 
laboured  report  to  the  assembly  on  the  laws  of  nations,  in 
which  this  monstrous  decree  is  supposed  to  be  annulled, 
expressly  says,  that  the  application  of  the  principles  he  had 
exhibited,  is  the  right  only  of  the  nations,  whose  govern 
ments  are  founded  on  the  rights  of  man.  The  best  proof, 
however,  that  France  has  not,  in  form,  renounced  the  decree, 
is,  that  she  has  invariably  adhered  to  it  in  fact. 

IT  appears  by  the  publications  of  Brissot  and  others,  that 
the  French  rulers,  like  the  Roman  senate,  believed  it  to  be 
necessary  rather  to  employ  the  fiery  turbulent  spirit  of  the 
nation  in  war  abroad,  than  to  let  it  employ  itself  in  sedition 
at  home.  It  is  a  general  opinion  among  the  democrats  of  all 
countries,  that  France  was  attacked  by  a  royal  coalition, 
jealous  of  her  republicanism.  The  fact  is,  the  French  be 
gan  the  war  in  Flanders  against  the  emperour,  when  his 
towns  were  without  garrisons,  the  fortifications  had  been  re 
cently  pulled  down,  and  the  troops  ordinarily  kept  on  foot, 
for  their  defence  did  not  amount  to  half  their  complement. 


THE  NEW  ROMANS.  205 

WITH  such  a  spirit  as  raged  in  France,  and  with  such  in 
terests  and  means  to  turn  the  fury  of  the  popular  passions 
against  the  emperour  and  the  king  of  England,  peace  was 
not  to  be  maintained.  When  a  whole  street  is  on  fire,  can  a 
man  set  at  his  ease  and  say,  my  house  is  of  brick  ;  let  my 
next  neighbour  burn ;  the  fire  will  burn  out,  and  then  the 
bustle  and  danger  will  be  over.  Such  are  the  speeches 
made,  and  with  great  popular  effect,  to  inflame  the  admirers 
of  democracy  with  a  zeal  for  injured,  invaded  France. 

Jam  proximus  ardet 

Ucalegon. 

The  conflagration  of  every  thing  combustible  in  France  ren 
dered  it  impossible  for  other  powers  to  be  at  peace  ;  and  as 
France  will  not  and  cannot  change  her  political  character, 
Europe  will  not  be  permitted  long  to  enjoy  it.  So  vast  a 
power  is  a  continual  incentive  to  ambition  ;  and  such  a  na 
tional  military  spirit  naturally  leads  to  power.  There  are 
many  states  in  Europe  still,  that  might  tempt  a  conqueror  j 
there  is  not  one,  except  Great  Britain,  that  has  the  spirit  and 
means  to  resist  him. 

IT  has  been  already  shewn,  that  the  only  prevailing  popu 
lar  sentiment  was  the  military  one.  The  excess  of  that 
passion  has  enabled  the  government  to  maintain  tranquillity 
as  profound,  as  if  there  was  no  war.  The  French  saw  tyran 
ny  in  Paris,  oppression  in  the  provinces  ;  all  commerce,  all 
credit,  all  manufacture  was  ruined  ;  but  as  an  offset  for  want, 
slavery,  and  ruin,  there  was  victory,  and  all  France  shouted 
for  joy. 

THE  manner,  in  which  this  Roman  power  has  been  used, 
is  truly  Roman.  The  neighbouring  states  have  been  made, 
not  merely  the  objects  of  conquest,  but  the  instruments  of 
ambition,  to  effect  more  conquests.  Except  Great  Britain, 
Portugal,  and  Turkey,  there  is  not  one  enemy  left,  whom 
France  has  not  made  her  ally.  The  emperour  and  the  king 
of  Naples  are  to  be  dishonoured  by  a  stipulation,  that  their 


206  THE  NEW  ROMANS. 

faithful  protectors,  the  English,  shall  be  excluded  from  their 
ports.  Portugal  is  supposed,  by  this  time,  to  be  forced  to 
adopt  the  like  measure.  To  cut  up  Turkey,  is  said  to  be  the 
object  of  a  late  treaty  between  Buonaparte  and  the  emperour 
Paul  of  Russia.  If  this  should  be  effected  there  will  be  ne\y 
struggles  and  revolution  ;  the  established  order  and  balance 
of  Europe  will  be  subverted  from  their  foundations  j  and 
happy  will  it  be,  if,  after  thirty  years  war,  it  should  be  set 
tled  again  as  firmly,  as  it  was  by  the  peace  of  Westphalia, 
in  1648. 

IT  was  in  like  manner  the  policy  of  Rome,  to  make  use 
of  her  feeble  enemies  to  destroy  such  as  were  strong.  The 
jEtolians  in  Greece  were  first  engaged  to  assist  in  destroy 
ing  Philip  of  Macedon.  They,  finding  themselves  duped  and 
enslaved  by  the  Romans,  called  in  Antiochus,  king  of  Syria, 
to  assist  them  in  their  defence.  The  cities  of  Greece  were 
gained,  and  dexterously  played  off  to  destroy  the  liberties  of 
Greece.  While  Rome  and  Carthage  were  contending,  the 
great  powers,  still  unconquered,  took  no  part  in  the  contest. 
Thus  Rome  not  only  attacked  them  one  after  another,  but 
was  always  sure  to  have  the  assistance  of  an  old  enemy, 
whom  she  had  just  conquered  into  an  alliance,  to  overpower 
a  new  one.  Hannibal,  after  his  defeat,  fled  to  Antiochus  :  it 
was  then  too  late,  for  Carthage  had  received  the  law  of  the 
conqueror.  Antiochus  interfered  in  the  affairs  of  Greece,  af 
ter  Philip  of  Macedon  was  humbled,  and  forced  to  be  the  ally 
of  Rome  against  him.  Mithridates,  king  of  Pontus,  had  no 
ally,  till  his  power  was  much  enfeebled — then  Tigranes  join 
ed  him,  in  time  to  be  defeated.  Greece  would  have  been 
strong,  if  it  had  been  united  ;  but  its  numerous  governments 
were  jealous  of  one  another,  often  at  war,  and  ready  to  call 
in  the  Romans  to  enslave  them  all.  It  seems  astonishing, 
that  neither  Macedon,  nor  Greece,  nor  Syria,  nor  Egypt 
made  treaties  of  mutual  defence,  or  took  any  sensible  mea 
sure  to  employ  all  their  joint  forces  in  self-preservation. 
The  world  would  have  been  saved  from  slavery. 


THE  NEW  ROMANS.  207 

THERE  is  scarcely  a  single  article  of  Roman  policy,  in 
which  we  do  not  perceive  the  servile  imitation  of  the  French  ; 
and  if  Great  Britain  was  a  republick,  as  Carthage  was,  there 
would  be  a  faction  in  its  bosom,  devoted  to  France,  strong 
enough  to  ensure  her  slavery.  The  fall  of  Great  Britain, 
would  quench  every  hope  of  the  recovery  of  the  indepen 
dence  of  Europe  :  a  new  Roman  servitude  would  spread  over 
the  civilized  world.  The  United  States  would  be  exposed 
to  new  toils,  conflicts,  and  dangers  :  faction  would  raise  her 
snaky  head  with  new  audacity,  confiding  in  the  support 
that  France  would  give  to  her  efforts.  We  might  be  alarm 
ed  in  time  to  see  the  approach  of  a  foreign  tyrant ;  but  we 
should  have  to  fight  for  our  independence,  or  to  resign  it. 


t    208    ] 
RUSSIA. 

first  published  in  the  Palladium,  yuly,  1301. 

Jt1  EW  things  are  worse  understood,  than  the  condition  of 
the  Northern  powers  in  respect  to  England,  especially  Rus 
sia.  English  capital  has  made  their  pot-ash  first,  and  then 
paid  for  it ;  it  has  bought  their  hemp-seed,  paid  for  plough 
ing  the  land,  and  then  purchased  the  hemp :  advances  were 
made  by  English  merchants  of  the -capital,  many  months 
before  the  product  appeared  at  market.  This  has  been  so 
well  understood,  that  American  merchants  have  sent  a  pur 
chasing  capital,  a  year  beforehand,  into  Russia  to  get  hemp 
and  cordage.  The  democrats  will  cry  out,  this  is  colonial 
dependence ;  and  ring  all  the  changes  on  their  set  of  bells. 
It  is  true,  countries  half-settled  and  not  half-civilized  are,  in 
fact,  dependent  on  countries  that  are  blessed  with  good  gov 
ernment,  and  the  laying-up  of  industry.  Accordingly,  the 
war  of  Russia  against  England  is  the  effort  of  poverty  against 
the  very  wealth  that  alone  must  employ  it. 

ERROURS  in  politicks  so  gross  cannot  be  atoned  for  by  mo 
derate  chastisement.  It  is  impossible,  that  Russia. should 
not  suffer  political  evils  of  magnitude,  in  consequence  of  the 
infatuated  counsels  of  her  deceased  madman.  Ignorance  is 
the  proper  soil  for  French  principles  to  sprout  in  ;  of  course, 
Russia,  is  in  danger  of  being  infected,  and,  after  all,  it  can 
not  be  the  political  interest  of  Russia  to  aggrandize  France. 
The  naval  power  of  Great  Britain  is,  ever  has  been,  and  must 
be  favourable  to  Russia ;  the  territorial  greatness  of  France 
ever  will  be  an  impediment.  France  is  interested  to  keep 
Turkey  from  falling  :  France  never  wishes  to  see  any  power 
great,  but  herself.  Eternal  barriers  are  placed  between  Rus 
sia  and  France ;  and  no  tricks  of  Buonaparte,  no  caprices 
of  Paul,  can  level  them.  The  attempt  to  disregard  the  fixed 
political  laws  of  her  being,  will  entail  incalculable  evils  on 
Russia :  it  is  possible  to  play  the  fool  in  politicks,  as  in  pri> 
vate  life,  but  never  with  impunity. 


C    209    3 
FOREIGN  POLITICKS.     N°.  I. 

PRELIMINARY  OBSERVATIONS. 

JL  UROPEAN  events  have  long  had  such  a  monopoly  of  the 
attention  of  Americans,  that  we  scarcely  find  leisure  or  dis 
position  to  backbite  and  persecute  each  other,  as  much  as  the 
rage  of  party  spirit  requires.  Our  pride  is  often  offended,  that 
our  country  makes  a  figure  in  the  world  so  little  conspicuous, 
that  others  overlook  it ;  and  we  almost  forget  ourselves,  while 
we  suffer  our  sympathy  and  reflections  to  be  exclusively 
engrossed  by  the  events  of  the  foreign  war. 

YET  the  champions  of  party  ought  to  be  consoled,  for  the 
diversion  of  any  party  of  our  patriotick  energies  from  the 
domestick  scene  of  controversy,  by  their  own  success  in  ren 
dering  foreign  politicks  subservient  to  their  design.  France, 
though  nerve  all  over,  does  not  feel  the  dread  nor  the  shame 
of  her  defeats,  nor  the  insolent  joy  of  her  victories,  with  more 
emotion  than  our  jacobins.  They  can  allege,  in  excuse  for 
the  deep  concern  they  take  in  all  the  confusion  and  all  the 
injustice  of  France,  that  they  are  not  mere  speculatists,  nor 
subject  to  impulses  that  are  blind  and  without  object ;  but  that 
their  pure  love  for  the  people  never  ceases  to  animate  them 
enough  to  imitate  what  they  admire,  and  to  introduce  what  they 
so  long  have  studied,  and  so  well  understand. 

THE  men  of  sense  and  virtue  have  excuses  too  for  their 
anxious  solicitude  about  European  affairs  :  there,  they  may  say, 
faction  culls  her  poisons ;  and  in  that  bloody  field,  at  length, 
we  can  perceive  the  antidote  is  sprouting.  Already  the  Aurora 
tells  us,  it  is  nonsense  to  talk  of  liberty  under  Buonaparte. 
Nevertheless,  if  France  should  be  superiour  in  the  war,  and 
should  dictate  the  terms  of  peace,  our  inbred  faction,  her  faith 
ful  ally,  would  be  superiour  here.  The  civilized  world  can 
enjoy  neither  safety  nor  repose,  if  the  most  restless  and  am 
bitious  nation  in  it,  obtains  what  it  has  struggled  for,  a  more 
27 


210  FOREIGN  POLITICKS. 

than  Roman  sway,  and  a  resistless  power  to  render  the  .interests 
of  all  other  states  as  subservient  to  its  own,  as  those  of  her 
Cisalpine  allies.  The  forest  that  harbours  one  wild  cat,  should 
breed  many  squirrels.  Ambition  like  that  of  France,  requires, 
for  its  daily  sustenance,  tameness  like  that  of  Spain  or  Hol 
land  :  if  all  her  neighbours  were  like  Britain,  where  could  this 
royal  tigress  find  prey  ? 

So  far,  indeed,  is  the  attention  paid  by  Americans  to  the 
affairs  of  Europe  from  being  a  subject  of  reproach,  that,  on  the 
contrary,  no  period  of  history  will  be  deemed  more  worthy  of 
study  by  our  statesmen,  as  well  as  our  youth,  than  that  of  the 
last  twelve  years. 

IN  France,  we  behold  the  effects  of  trying  by  the  test  of 
experience  the  most  plausible  metaphysical  principles,  in  ap 
pearance  the  most  pure,  yet  the  .most  surprisingly  in  contrast 
with  the  corruption  of  the  national  manners.  Theories,  fit  for 
angels,  have  been  adopted  for  the  use  of  a  multitude,  who  have 
been  found,  when  left  to  what  is  called  their  self-government, 
unfit  to  be  called  men  ;  as  if  the  misrule  of  chaos  or  of  pan 
demonium  would  yield  to  a  little  instruction  in  singing  psalms 
and  divine  songs;  as  if  the  passions  inherent  in  man,  and  a 
constituent  part  of  his  nature,  were  so  many  devils  that  even  un 
believers  could  cast  out,  without  a  miracle,  and  without  fasting 
and  prayer.  By  stamping  the  rights  of  man  on  pocket  hand 
kerchiefs,  it  was  supposed  they  were  understood  by  those  who 
understand  nothing ;  and  by  voting  them  through  the  conven 
tion,  it  would  cost  a  man  his  life  and  estate  to  say,  that  they 
were  not  established. 

ON  grounds  so  solid  Condorcet  could  proclaim  to  the  en 
lightened,  the  fish  women,  and  the  mob  of  the  suburbs  of  St. 
Antoine,  all  disciples  of  "  the  new  school  of  philosophy;" 
Mr.  Jefferson  could  assure  Thomas  Paine ;  and  even  the  cir 
cumspect  Madison  could  pronounce  in  congress,  that  France 
had  improved  on  all  known  plans  of  government,  and  that  her 
liberty  was  immortal. 

EXPERIENCE  has  shewn,  and  it  ought  to  be  of  all  teaching 
the  most  profitable,  that  any  government  by  mere  popular  im- 


FOREIGN  POLITICKS.  211 

pulses,  any  plan  that  excites,  instead  of  restraining,  the  pas 
sions  of  the  multitude,  is  a  despotism :  it  is  not,  even  in  its 
beginning,  much  less  in  its  progress,  nor  in  its  issue  and  ef 
fects,  libertij.  As  well  might  we  suppose,  that  the  assassin's 
dagger  conveys  a  restorative  balsam  to  the  heart,  when  it  stabs 
it;  or  that  the  rottenness  and  dry  bones  of  the  grave  will 
spring  up  again,  in  this  life,  endued  with  imperishable  vigour 
and  the  perfection  of  angels.  To  cure  expectations,  at  once 
so  foolish  and  so  sanguine,  what  can  be  more  rational  than  to 
inspect  sometimes  the  sepulchre  of  French  liberty  ?  The  body 
is  not  deposited  there,  for  indeed  it  never  existed ;  but  much 
instruction  is  to  be  gained  by  carefully  considering  the  lying 
vanity  of  its  epitaph. 

THE  great  contest  between  England  and  France,  also,  shews 
the  stability  and  the  resources  of  free  governments,  and  the 
precariousness  and  wide-spreading  ruin  of  the  resort  to  revo 
lutionary  means.  We  shall  not,  therefore,  hesitate  to  present, 
from  time  to  time,  the  most  correct  and  extensive  views  we 
can  take  of  events  in  Europe.  -t 

WE  have  made  these  observations,  and  we  address  them 
with  the  more  deliberation  to  the  good  sense  of  the  citizens, 
because  it  has  been  a  part  of  the  common  place  of  democratick 
foppery  to  say,  what  have  we  to  do  with  Europe  ?  we  are  a 
world  by  ourselves.  This  they  have  said  a  thousand  times, 
while  they  told  us  the  cause  of  France  was  the  cause  of  liberty, 
and  inseparably  our  cause.  Every  body  knows,  that  the  mad  zeal 
for  France  was  wrought  up  with  the  intent  to  influence  Ameri 
can  politicks ;  and  it  did  influence,  and  yet  influences  them.  A 
trading  nation,  whose  concerns  extend  over  the  commercial 
wTorld,  and  whose  interests  are  affected  by  their  wars  and  revolu 
tions,  cannot  expect  to  be  a  merely  disinterested,  though  by  good 
fortune  it  may  be  a  neutral,  spectator.  Unless,  therefore,  we 
survey  Europe,  as  well  as  America,  we  do  not  "  take  a  view  of 
the  whole  ground."  And  if  we  must  survey  it,  and  our  in 
terests  are  concerned  in  the  course  of  foreign  events,  it  is 
obviously  important  that  we  should  understand  what  we  ob* 


212.  FOREIGN  POLITICKS. 

serve,  and  separate,  as  much  as  possible,  errour  from  the  wis* 
dom  that  is  to  be  gleaned  by  experience. 

WE  invite  our  able  patrons  and  correspondents  to  assist  us 
in  our  labours  ;  and  to  exercise  their  candour,  if,  at  any  time, 
we  should  present  an  imperfect  or  mistaken  view  of  European 
affairs  :  we  shall  not  wilfully  misrepresent. 


FOREIGN  POLITICKS.     N°   II. 

GREAT  BRITAIN  and  France  are  the  primary  nations  ;  it 
is  evident,  that  all  the  rest  play  a  subordinate  and  secondary 
part.     The  French  adopt  this  opinion,  and  call  France,  Rome, 
and  Great  Britain,  Carthage.     If  this  similitude  were  exact, 
Britain  would  sink  in  the  contest.     But  the  British  govern 
ment  is  more  stable  than  that  of  Carthage ;   and,  therefore, 
faction  is  a  little  less  virulent  and  a  great  deal  less  powerful. 
Besides,  the  British  superiority  on  the  seas  is  more  clearly,  as 
well  as  more  durably  established,  and  more  effectively  display 
ed,  than  that  of  Carthage.    The  naval  art  was  rude  and  imper 
fect  in  ancient  times  ;  and  those,  who  then  understood  it  best, 
were  little  the  better  for  that  advantage.    Duiliius,  the  Roman 
consul,  gained  a  naval  victory  with  mere  landsmen.     The  rea 
son  was,  that  the  ships  of  war  were  rowed  alongside  their  an 
tagonists,  and  being  grappled  firmly  together,  the  combat  was 
maintained,  as  in  fights  on  land,  by  a  body  of  soldiers  on  each 
side.     This  being  the  ordinary  event  of  a  seafight,  no  wonder 
the  Roman  soldiers,  whose  valour  was  the  steadiest  and  the 
best  trained  in  the  world,  prevailed  over  the  mercenaries  of 
Carthage.     Every  thing    is  different   between    England    and 
France.     So  superiour  are  the  English  seamen  to  the  French, 
so  little  now  depends  on  the  number  of  men,  and  so  much 
upon  naval  art,  that  the  crowd  of  Frenchmen  on  board  their 
vessels  are   rather  an  incumbrance,  than  an  effective  force. 
There  is  seldom  a  seafight,  in  which  the  French  escape,  al 
though  their  crews  are  far  more  numerous  than  those  of  their 
conquerors.     Great  Britain,  too,  enjoys  a  durable  superiority. 


FOREIGN  POLITICKS.  213 

There  must  be  commerce,  before  there  will  be  seamen  ;  there 
must  be  a  stable  government,  before  there  will  be  a  general 
spirit  of  enterprise  and  industry  to  create  commerce.  The 
hands  of  labour  will  be  weak,  while  its  earnings  are  exposed 
to  rapine,  as  in  France.  It  will  be  an  age  or  two,  before  that 
nation  will  get  rid  of  her  military  tyrants  ?nd  her  revolutionary 
spirit ;  and,  till  she  does,  her  prosperity  will  be  precarious,  and 
her  naval  power  will  be  displayed,  like  that  of  Turkey,  by 
forcing  awkward  landmen  on  board  ships.  Despotism  will 
waste  men  and  wealth,  and  in  vain,  to  imitate  the  spontaneous 
energies  of  industry  and  commerce,  fostered  by  a  free  and 
stable  government.  It  may  be  added,  that  a  naval  power  is 
exerted  with  infinitely  more  effect  now,  than  it  was  in  ancient 
times :  every  nation  almost  is  now  vulnerable  in  its  commerce 
and  in  its  colonies ;  the  ruin  of  these  produces  a  decay  of  the 
revenues  and  resources  for  war. 

IF  then  France  affects  to  be  Rome,  she  will  not  find  in 
Great  Britain  a  Carthage.  Nay,  even  in  the  military  spirit  of 
her  people,  Britain,  with  the  exercise  of  one  brisk  campaign, 
would  not  be  found  inferiour  to  her  boastful  antagonist.  The 
campaign  in  Egypt  evinces,  that  Englishmen  can  be  good  sol 
diers,  as  well  as  seamen.  Carthage,  on  the  contrary,  was  too 
much  torn  by  factions  to  maintain  a  good  infantry  of  her  own 
citizens  :  she  hired  strangers.  But  her  cavalry,  as  that  was  not 
a  despised  service,  like  the  infantry,  but  attended  with  honour, 
was  excellent,  and  so  superiour  to  that  of  Rome,  that  the  Nu- 
midian  horse,  under  Hannibal,  won  every  battle  in  the  open 
plains. 

CARTHAGE  was  rich,  and  England  is  richer ;  Carthage  was 
called  free,  England  is  really  so  ;  and  if  the  government  of 
Great  Britain  were  either  a  democracy  or  a  despotism,  it,  in 
the  first  case,  would  have  been  shivered  to  pieces  by  faction, 
and  in  the  latter,  by  France,  within  the  first  four  years  of  the 
war.  None  but  free  governments  are  stable ;  and  none  that 
are  purely  democratick  are  free.  We  hope,  that  publick  opin 
ion  will  so  effectually  counteract  the  seduction  and  the  threaten 
ed  preponderance  of  a  violent  jacobin  administration,  that  our 


214  FOREIGN  POLITICKS. 

own  government,  so  wisely  and  happily  combined,  and  so  well 
adapted  to  our  circumstances  and  sentiments,  will  be  found, 
after  some  trials  and  agitations,  to  be  both  stable  and  free. 

IN  point  of  resources,  it  does  not  appear,  that  Britain  expe 
riences  any  want  ;  nor  that  France  has,  except  in  the  violence 
of  force  and  tyranny,- any  sort  of  security  for  a  supply.  It  was 
foretold  years  ago,  that  Great  Britain  was  to  be  ruined  and 
beggared,  and  must  have  peace  if  she  took  servitude  with  it. 
The  opposition  assured  the  nation  of  the  event ;  yet  time  has 
confuted  these  predictions ;  wealth  goes  on  augmenting  ;  cre 
dit  is  the  steadier  for  the  shocks  that  have  waved  its  branches, 
but  could  not  stir  its  roots.  The  war  is  chiefly  naval ;  and  the 
seamen  are  now  formed,  and  indeed  have  grown  up  in  the  wary 
in  sufficient  numbers.  The  expenses,  great  as  they  are,  are 
not  increasing,  nor  are  they  lavished  in  Germany,  as  they  were 
in  1794  and  1795.  A  long  war  creates  a  sort  of  commerce 
for  itself,  and,  as  it  were,  makes  a  part  of  its  own  means. 
There  cannot,  therefore,  exist  a  doubt,  that  Britain  is  able  to 
continue  the  war.  Her  land  never  produced  more  ;  aiid  its 
products  never  before  were  worth  so  much.  Her  industry- 
never  was  greater ;  and  the  demands  for  its  fabricks  were 
never  so  little  divided  with  competitors.  Her  tons  of  ship 
ping  and  her  trade  are  greater  than  at  any  former  period. 
Her  capital  is  doubled  ;  and  it  is  as  sure  to  create  employment, 
as  employment  is  to  accumulate  capital.  These  are  the  foun 
tains  of  wealth,  and  they  flow  with  an  unexhausted  and  pro 
gressively  increasing  stream.  France  is  more  nearly  beg 
gared  by  revolution,  and  Spain  by  the  pride  and  laziness  of  her 
people,  than  Great  Britain  is  by  the  war.  It  is  a  great  evil  to 
a  nation  to  be  obliged  to  exert  all  its  energies  to  preserve  it 
self  from  French  fraternity  ;  but  it  would  be  an-  evil  a  hundred 
times  greater  to  fall  under  it. 

THE  proper  test  of  the  justness  of  these  observations  is  not, 
that  they  may  appear  to  oftcnd  against  some  popular  preju 
dices,  or  that  the  jacobin  gazettes  will  interpret  them  into  the 
most  abominable  meanings  :  no  one  expects,  that  the  jacobins 
will  content  themselves  with  the  truth  on  this  subject.  Inqui- 


FOREIGN  POLITICKS.  215 

sitive  persons,  and  fair-minded  citizens,  are  desired  to  examine, 
before  they  decide  ;  and  even  if  they  expose  the  errours  of  our 
judgment,  they  \vill  advance  our  purpose,  inasmuch  as  we  wish, 
and  it  shall  be  our  endeavour  to  extract  from  foreign  events^ 
the  sound  materials  for  political  instruction.  We  leave  it  to 
the  jacobin  editors  to  cook  for  their  readers  a  mawkish  aliment 
for  prejudice  and  faction. 

SUCH  readers  believe,  that,  while  Great  Britain  is  on  the 
verge  of  bankruptcy  and  ruin,  while  she  is  loathsome  in  her 
corruptions,  and  humbled  by  her  fears  and  her  defeats,  France 
is  renewing  her  youth  and  vigour,  happy  in  her  liberty,  and 
strong  by  her  victories.  A  European  would  scarcely  believe 
there  was  in  America  enough  of  what,  in  other  countries,  is 
called  mob,  to  give  currency  to  such  glaring  falsehood. 

FRANCE  has  used,  from  the  first,  revolutionarij  means,  in 
other  words, 'all  that  violence  could  procure.  While  England, 
with  difficulty,  taxed  income,  her  rival  could,  by  a  decree, 
seize  the  capital ;  and  after  it  had  been  sold  to  revolutionary 
buyers,  the  next  men  in  power  could  decree,  that  these  were 
royalists,  and  seize  it  a  second  time :  every  change  brought 
the  whole  stock  to  the  new  mint.  One  would  expect,  that 
France  was  of  all  nations  the  richest  in  resources  ;  since  it 
could  spend  all,  and  then  attack  the  new  holders  of  property, 
and  spend  it  as  often  as  the  necessities  of  liberty  might  require. 
By  a  formal  decree,  all  property  in  France  has  been  declared 
In  a  state  of  requisition.  The  whole  people  were  also  enrolled 
and  in  requisition  ;  and  death,  or  confiscation  of  the  offender's 
property,  ensued  on  disobedience.  Never  did  Eastern  des 
potism  claim  more  tremendous  power,  or  actually  exercise  so 
much.  Yet  violence  is  ever  a  temporary  resource  :  it  is  a  fire, 
whose  splendour  is  brilliant  ruin.  France  is  now  destitute  of 
credit,  of  revenue,  of  all  the  ordinary  means  to  extract  resources 
from  her  people ;  and  she  has  used  and  abused  the  extra- 
ordinary,  till  they  are  almost  as  unproductive,  as  they  are 
odious.  She  looks  for  means  abroad  ;  she  looks  to  Portugal, 
to  Italy,  to  Spain,  and  to  Holland.  The  field  of  plunder  will  not 
bear  two  crops,  and  it  is  already  barren.  Buonaparte,  of  course, 


216  FOREIGN  POLITICKS. 

sees  the  varnish  of  his  popularity  wearing  off,  and  the  hopes 
of  his  slaves  fading  into  disappointment.  Already  he  fe^rs 
the  effects  of  that  temper  of  the  French,  which  is  ever  putient 
under  tyranny,  but  ever  eager  to  establish  a  new  tyrant.  He 
sees  Egypt  nearly  wrested  from  his  domination  ;  his  splendid 
promises  of  wealth  and  glory,  in  an  expedition  to  subvert  the 
British  dominion  in  India,  vanish  into  air ;  the  powers  of  the 
North,  whom  he  duped  and  betrayed,  beaten  into  a  better 
understanding  of  the  law  of  nations,  and  embittered  against 
their  deceiver  ;  Germany,  though  too  discordant  to  oppose  him 
in  the  field,  yet  too  powerful  to  submit  to  his  dictates.  The 
secularization  of  the  ecclesiastical  states,  is  too  much  the  con 
cern  of  Russia  and  Prussia,  to  be  carried  along  on  the  terms 
of  the  treaty  of  Luneville.  He  also  needs  peace  to  consolidate 
his  power,  and  to  give  a  breathing  spell  to  his  exhausted  sub 
jects,  and  also  to  induce  his  triumphant  enemy  to  disarm. 
But,  if  the  English  populace  have  bread,  and  the  English 
minister  has  sense  and  spirit,  the  affair  of  peace  will  be  decid 
ed  on  other  grounds,  than  Buonaparte's  desire  to  obtain  it.  It 
will  be  asked,  what  has  England  to  fear  from  war  ?  What  has 
she  not  to  fear  from  peace  ?  War  brings  no  burdens,  of  which 
they  have  not  had  experience  ;  no  evils,  but  such  as  they  have 
surmounted.  Peace  will  be  a  new  and  untried  state  of  being, 
requiring  all  the  burdens  of  war  taxes,  and  war  forces,  and 
giving  no  respite  to  Englishmen,  while  it  affords  one  to  France. 
The  revolutionary  fire  is  not  quenched  ;  and  peace  would  leave 
it  to  blaze  out  again  in  three  years,  with  a  fiercer  conflagration 
and  a  wider  ruin  than  ever. 


FOREIGN  POLITICKS.     N°.  III. 

FEW  subjects  are  considered  with  so  little  care,  and  so 
much  party  feeling  and  prejudice,  as  the  political  situation  of 
France.  In  respect  to  her  neighbours,  she  is  supposed  to 
possess  a  power  as  durable  as  it  is  preponderant ;  and,  with 
respect  to  her  own  citizens,  she  is  deemed  to  be  as  happy  as 


FOREIGN  POLITICKS.  217 

victory,  plenty,  and  liberty  can  make  her.  The  grounds  of 
these  darling  errours  might  be  explored  with  advantage ;  but 
it  would  fill  all  the  columns  of  a  newspaper,  and,  indeed,  the 
pages  of  an  octavo  volume,  to  exhibit  the  subject  in  detail. 
Men  more  competent,  than  we  pretend  to  be,  must  write 
books ;  and  persons  more  at  leisure,  than  the  majority  of  our 
readers,  will  read  them.  A  brief  and  rapid  summary  of  the 
most  signal  facts  and  principles,  is  all  that  we  presume  to 
undertake,  and  even  for  that,  the  materials  are  scanty,  and  the 
rage  of  party  has  confused  and  mutilated  them.  Every  booby 
democrat  from  France  comes  home  to  brag  of  the  power  and 
splendour  of  the  court  of  Buonaparte,  and  of  the  pure  repub 
licanism  and  equality  of  that  nation,  as  if  Jie  had  exactly  the 
same  measure  of  understanding,  as  of  patriotism.  It  is  well 
recollected,  that,  while  Robespiere  reigned,  and  the  blood  ran 
in  Paris,  Bourdeaux,  Lyons,  and  Nantz,  in  streams,  that  would 
have  turned  corn-mills,  every  ship's  captain  arrived  with  such 
a  tale  for  the  jacobin  newspapers,  as  would  suit  the  fashion  of 
our  market :  it  seemed  as  if  lies  were  bespoke  and  made  for 
customers.  All  was  then  represented  as  peace  and  order,  a 
stable  government,  and  a  contented,  happy,  prosperous  people. 
The  zeal  for  France  invited  deception,  and  sheltered  it  from 
scrutiny.  The  jacobins  still  prefer  France  to  America,  and 
try  very  hard  to  "  cover  her  with  glory"  when  she  is  defeated, 
and  to  represent  the  "  cowardly  English"  as  ruined,  when  they 
conquer.  Accordingly,  Egypt  is  still,  in  the  Chronicle,  a 
burying  ground  for  the  English,  where  they  die  of  the  plague, 
and  by  the  sword  of  Menou,  and  by  that  of  the  mamelukes 
and  Arabs,  and  thus  the  Chronicle  thrice  slays  the  slain  ;  yet, 
probably,  Egypt  is  now  in  the  full  possession  of  the  English 
and  Turks.  In  this  case,  one  of  the  supposed  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  peace  is  removed ;  for  if  Buonaparte  holds  Egypt, 
it  can  only  be  to  make  it  a  military  post,  from  which,  within 
two  years  from  the  signing  of  a  peace,  to  send  forth  armies 
against  the  British  possessions  in  India.  A  peace,  on  such 
terms,  would  be  a  truce  altogether  favourable  to  Buonaparte, 
unfavourable  to  England.  If  the  spirit  of  the  British  nation 
28 


218  FOREIGN  POLITICKS. 

is  up,  the  minister  will  not  feel  himself  obliged  to  submit  to 
any  such  insidious,  and  indeed  hostile,  arrangement.  The  loss 
of  Egypt  will  remove  this  bone  of  contention. 

YET,  as  France  is  too  powerful  to  allow  her  neighbours  any 
repose,  the  only  question  seems  to  be,  not  whether  England 
shall  lay  aside  her  arms,  for  that  is  impossible,  even  in 
.peace,  but  whether  they  shall  be  idle  in  her  hands.  While 
she  is  in  danger,  she  must  make  all  her  efforts  in  self-defence ; 
and  surely  every  jacobin  has  enough  of  the  Frenchman  in  his 
heart  to  allow,  if  he  will  speak  out,  that  he  would  use  the 
opportunity  of  peace  to  prepare  the  force,  and  the  first  moment 
of  sedition  or  insurrection  in  England,  or  the  decease  of  king 
George,  or  any  other  favourable  event,  to  employ  force,  to 
overturn  that  cursed  monarch^,  and  to  strip  that  nation  of  its 
navy,  commerce,  and  power.  In  this  state  of  things,  it  seems 
justifiable  for  the  British  minister  to  ponder  well,  whether,  if 
safety  lies,  as  it  certainly  does,  in  arms,  which  is  the  best 
.time  to  employ  them,  the  present,  or  some  future,  and  not 
distant  time,  that  France  shall  seize,  when  England  is  in  a 
state  of  division  and  dismay.  The  question  is  important,  and 
concerns  her  political  life  or  death. 

IT  has  been  already  observed,  that  the  British  land  and  naval 
forces  cannot  be  much  reduced  on  a  peace.  Austria  is  recruit 
ing  her  armies,  and  will  soon  have  need  of  them,  especially  if 
she  is  believed  to  be  unprepared  for  war.  Peace  will  lessen 
the  energies  of  war,  but  not  its  burdens.  It  will,  at  least  in 
some  degree,  restore  the  commerce  and  navy  of  Britain's 
great  rival,  while  her  own  trade  and  industry,  now  secure  in  a 
monopoly,  will  then  have  to  struggle  with  competition.  France 
is  now  nearly  stript  of  all  allies,  except  such  as  she  has  con 
quered.  The  independent  powers  are  her  foes  in  fact,  or  in 
sentiment  and  policy.  Would  it  not  then  be  strange,  if  Britain 
should  purchase  for  herself  a  short  truce,  full  -of  treachery  and 
danger,  that  would  refresh  her  enemy,  and  leave  to  her  neither 
a  respite  nor  the  hope  of  advantage  ?  The  clamour  for  peace, 
so  loud,  while  bread  was  scarce,  ought  now  to  subside  in  Eng- 


FOREIGN  POLITICKS.  219 

land ;  and  if  they  are  not  willing  to  be  Dutchmen  or  Cisal pines, 
they  ought  to  be  willing  to  be  soldiers  and  seamen. 

WAR  is  indeed  a  great  evil,  but  peace,  with  danger  anil 
dishonour,  is  a  greater.  It  has  been  the  fashion  to  make  it  a 
merit  for  any  man  to  desire  peace  ;  as  if  the  question  of  peace 
was  to  be  considered  in  the  abstract,  and  as  if  the  war  that 
rages  was  not  a  case,  like  every  other,  to  be  examined  and 
pronounced  upon  according  to  its  existing  circumstances. 

SUPPOSING,  then,  the  war  should  continue,  because  the  am 
bition  of  France  still  thirsts  for  conquest  and  plunder,  and 
because  the  English  government  seeks,  what  peace  would 
deny  her,  security  and  repose,  what  are  the  chances  of  this 
mighty  and  long-protracted  contest  ?  England  is  all  powerful  at 
sea  ;  France  has  hitherto  proved  victorious  on  land.  Thus  far 
the  odds  are  in  favour  of  England,  because  she  can  annoy 
France,  she  can  insult  her  coasts,  she  can  prevent  her  com 
merce  from  reviving,  and  thus  she  -can  distress  her  enemy  in 
his  supplies  and  his  finances.  France  threatens  England  with, 
invasion :  is  not  the  threat  ridiculous  ?  Two  or  three  hundred 
English  ships  and  frigates  will  almost  touch  one  another  in  the 
channel,  and  effectually  prevent  a  fleet  of  French  flat -bottomed 
boats  from  landing  an  army  by  surprise.  An  English  army  of 
three  hundred  thousand  men,  fighting  for  life,  liberty,  and 
property,  would  destroy  any  hostile  force  that  might  be  dis 
embarked.  The  immense  land  force  of  France  seems  to  be, 
therefore,  nearly  useless  in  the  war  with  England.  It  serves, 
however,  to  consume  her  own  resources,  and  to  keep  alive  the 
jealousy  and  hatred  of  her  neighbours.  Rome  subsisted  her 
armies  by  plunder:  a  war  found  its  own  means  of  supply ;  and 
from  the  time  of  Perseus  to  the  consulship  of  Hirtius  and 
Pansa,  the  spoils  of  Macedon  and  other  conquered  states,  sup 
plied  all  expenses ;  so  that,  for  more  than  one  hundred  years, 
no  taxes  were  imposed  on  the  Roman  people.  Let  it  be  noted, 
however,  that  modern  wars  glean  infinitely  less  from  the  field 
of  plunder ;  while  they  cost,  for  artillery,  sieges,  and  cavalry, 
infinitely  more.  To  this  add  the  Roman  soldiers  feared  the 
Gods,  and  religiously  kept  their  oath,  to  bring  all  the  plunder 


220  FOREIGN  POLITICKS. 

into  the  publick  stock ;  the  Roman  senate  faithfully  and  fru 
gally  administered  this  treasure.     France  plunders  Europe ; 
and  her  tyrants  plunder  France :  it  is  easier  for  her  to  beggar 
Italy,  than  to  satisfy  her  commissaries.    Her  trade  is  war,  and 
in  a  maritime  strife  this  cannot  be  a  gainful  trade.     The  con 
fusion  of  twelve  years  is  not  to  be  retrieved  by  establishing 
martial  law  for  eighteen  months.     The  first  consul  may  issue 
his  general  orders,  that  the  revolution  is  over ;  all  France  may 
be  hushed  to  silence,  like  a  camp ;  yet  it  will  not  cease  to  suf 
fer,  while  it  trembles.     With  a  fruitful  territory,  a  vast  addi 
tion  of  subjects  by  her  conquests,  and  an  energy  of  military 
government,  that  can  take  the  last  dollar,  and  a  man's  life,  if 
he  seems  to  give  it  loathly,  it  might  appear,  that  her  pecuniary 
means  are  not  to  be  exhausted.     Let  it,  however,  be  noted, 
that  these  very  conquests  require  a  large  part  of  her  force  and 
treasure  to  preserve  them.      Perhaps  they  now  require  as 
much  as  they  supply.     Already  plundered,  they  cannot  soon 
yield  any  great  amount  of  regular  revenue,  or  even  of  plunder. 
The  immense  territory,  nominally  or  effectively  conquered  by 
France,  obliges  her  to  keep  on  foot  two  hundred  thousand 
men,  nearly  as  many  as  her  peace  establishment  under  Louis 
the  sixteenth.     Three  hundred  thousand  other  troops  absorb 
more  than  all  the  surplus  of  her  means,  after  providing  for 
other  essential  objects  of  government.     How  is  she  to  defray 
this  enormous  charge,  so  much  augmented  by  revolutionary 
confusion  and  fraud  ?  The  expedients  she  has  resorted  to,  suffi 
ciently  prove  the  extremity  of  her  distress  on  this  account. 
She  has  had  paper  money ;  she  has  in  effect  blotted  out  her 
old  debt ;  she  has  repeatedly  stopped  payment  of  her  new  debt, 
which  she  pretended  to  call  the  sacred  price  of  her  liberty ; 
she  has  sold  an  hundred  thousand  square  miles  of  confiscated 
estates,  the  property  of  men  whom  she  forced  to  run  away  to 
save  their  lives ;  she  has  seized  the  Caisse  d'Escompte  and 
the  other  banks  ;  she  has  violently  extorted  money  from  the 
jews  and  bankers  of  Paris ;  she  has  stript  the  churches  of  the 
Austrian  Netherlands,  and  of  Italy  ;  taxed  the  Dutch  six  per 
cent,  of  all  their  property ;  and  forced  a  loan  from  all  her  own 


FOREIGN  POLITICKS.  221 

subjects.  The  conduct  of  this  forced  loan  shews  both  her 
poverty  and  her  tyranny :  her  poverty,  because  it  yielded  little 
of  what  was  expected  from  it ;  and  her  tyranny,  because  no 
Eastern  despot  ever  adopted  more  arbitrary  means  of  compul 
sion.  The  sans-culottes,  or  rabble,  and  people  of  small  pro 
perty,  who  were  violent  revolutionists,  paid  nothing ;  while 
the  rich  were  arbitrarily,  and  without  any  estimation  or  rule, 
assessed  at  pleasure.  The  tax  was  a  decree  of  confiscation, 
with  such  exceptions  in  its  collection,  as  to  make  it  robbery. 
There  never  was  a  moment,  when  the  government  did  not  use 
all  the  rigours  of  tyranny  to  procure  money ;  nor  one,  when 
the  collection  of  it  supplied  any  adequate  resources :  the  peo 
ple  have  ever  suffered  oppression,  and  the  government  want. 
LET  it  be  well  considered,  then,  how  desperate  the  contest 
must  be  for  France,  provided  the  English  be  able  to  maintain 
it  for  some  years  longer.  The  English  are  not  a  stupid  peo 
ple,  nor  have  they  a  feeble  government :  they  will  discern  the 
almost  certainty  of  their  success,  and  will  persevere  to  ensure 
it.  The  civilized  world,  long  endangered  by  France,  will  then 
be  again  in  security. 


C    222    ] 


HERCULES. 

VIRST    PUBLISHED    IX    THE    PALLADIUM,    OCTOBER,    ISOi. 
TO  PRINTERS. 

AT  seems  as  if  newspaper  wares  were  made  to  suit  a  market, 
as  much  as  any  other.  The  starers,  and  wonderers,  and 
gapers,  engross  a  very  large  share  of  the  attention  of  all 
the  sons  of  the  type.  Extraordinary  events  multiply  upon 
us  surprisingly.  Gazettes,  it  is  seriously  to  be  feared,  will 
not  long  allow  room  to  any  thing,  that  is  not  loathsome  or 
shocking.  A  newspaper  is  pronounced  to  be  very  lean  and 
destitute  of  matter,  if  it  contains  no  account  of  murders,  sui 
cides,  prodigies,  or  monstrous  births. 

SOME  of  these  tales  excite  horrour,  and  others  disgust  ;  yet 
the  fashion  reigns,  like  a  tyrant,  to  relish  wonders,  and  almost 
to  relish  nothing  else.  Is  this  a  reasonable  taste  ?  or  is  it  mon 
strous  and  worthy  of  ridicule  ?  Is  the  history  of  Newgate  the 
only  one  worth  reading  ?  Are  oddities  only  to  be  hunted  ?  Pray 
tell  us,  men  of  ink,  if  our  free  presses  are  to  diffuse  informa 
tion^  and  we,  the  poor  ignorant  people,  can  get  it  no  other  way 
than  by  newspapers,  what  knowledge  we  are  to  glean  from  the 
blundering  lies,  or  the  tiresome  truths  about  thunder  storms, 
that,  strange  to  tell-!  kill  oxen  or  burn  barns  ;  and  cats,  that 
bring  two-headed  kittens  ;  and  sows,  that  eat  their  own  pigs  ? 
The  crowing  of  a  hen  is  supposed  to  forbode  cuckoldom  ;  and 
the  ticking  of  a  little  bug  in  the  wall  threatens  yellow  fever. 
It  seems  really  as  if  our  newspapers  were  busy  to  spread  super 
stition.  Omens,  and  dreams,  and  prodigies,  are  recorded,  as 
if  they  were  worth  minding.  One  would  think  our  gazettes 
were  intended  for  Roman  readers,  who  were  silly  enough  to 
make  account  of  such  things.  We  ridicule  the  papists  for 
their  credulity  ;  yet,  if  all  the  trumpery  of  our  papers  is  be 
lieved,  we  have  little  right  to  laugh  at  any  set  of  people  -on 
earth ;  and  if  it  is  not  believed,  why  is  it  printed  ? 


HERCULES.  223 

SURELY,  extraordinary  events  have  not  the  best  title  to  our 
studious  attention.  To  study  nature  or  man,  \ve  ought  to  know 
things  that  are  in  the  ordinary  course,  not  the  unaccountable 
things  that  happen  out  of  it. 

THIS  country  is  said  to  measure  seven  hundred  millions  of 
acres,  and  is  inhabited  by  almost  six  millions  of  people.  Who 
can  doubt,  then,  that  a  great  many  crimes  will  be  committed, 
and  a  great  many  strange  things  will  happen  every  seven 
years  ?  There  will  be  thunder  showers,  that  will  split  tough 
white  oak  trees  ;  and  hail  storms,  that  will  cost  some  farmers 
the  full  amount  of  twenty  shillings  to  mend  their  glass  win 
dows  ;  there  will  be  taverns,  and  boxing  matches,  and  elec 
tions,  and  gouging,  and  drinking,  and  love,  and  murder,  and 
running  in  debt,  and  running  away,  and  suicide.  Now,  if  u 
man  supposes  eight,  or  ten,  or  twenty  dozen  of  these  amusing 
events  will  happen  in  a  single  year,  is  he  not  just  as  wise  as 
another  man,  who  reads  fifty  columns  of  amazing  particulars, 
and,  of  course,  knows  that  they  have  happened  ? 

THIS  state  has  almost  one  hundred  thousand  dwelling 
houses  :  it-would  be  strange,  if  all  of  them  should  escape  fire 
for  twelve  months.  Yet  is  it  very  profitable  for  a  man  to  be 
come  a  deep  student  of  all  the  accidents,  by  which  they  are 
consumed  ?  He  should  take  good  care  of  his  chimney  corner, 
and  put  a  fender  before  the  back-log,  before  he  goes  to  bed. 
Having  done  this,  he  may  let  his  aunt  or  grandmother  read  by 
day,  or  meditate  by  night,  the  terrible  newspaper  articles  of 
fires  ;  how  a  maid  dropped  asleep  reading  a  romance,  and  the 
bed-clothes  took  fire ;  how  a  boy,  searching  in  a  garret  for  a 
hoard  of  nuts,  kindled  some  flax  ;  and  how  a  mouse,  warming 
his  tail,  caught  it  on  fire,  and  carried  it  into  his  hole  in  the 
floor. 

SOME  of  the  shocking  articles  in  the  papers  raise  simple? 
and  very  simple,  wonder ;  some,  terrour ;  and  some,  horrour 
and  disgust.  Now  what  instruction  is  there  in  these  endless 
wonders?  Who  is  the  wiser  or  happier  for  reading  the  ac 
counts  of  them  ?  On  the  contrary,  do  they  not  shock  tender 
minds,  and  addle  shallow  brains  ?  They  make  a  thousand  old 


224  HERCULES. 

maids,  and  eight  or  ten  thousand  booby  boys,  afraid  to  go  to 
bed  alone.  Worse  than  this  happens  ;  for  some  eccentrick 
minds  are  turned  to  mischief  by  such  accounts,  as  they  receive, 
of  troops  of  incendiaries  burning  our  cities  :  the  spirit  of  imi 
tation  is  contagious  ;  and  boys  are  found  unaccountably  bent  to 
do  as  men  do.  When  the  man  flew  from  the  steeple  of  the 
North  church  fifty  years  ago,  every  unlucky  boy  thought  of 
nothing  but  flying  from  a  signpost. 

IT  was  once  a  fashion  to  stab  hereticks  ;  and  Ravaillac,  who 
stabbed  Henry  the  fourth  of  France,  the  assassin  of  the  duke 
of  Guise,  and  of  the  duke  of  Buckingham,  with  many  others, 
only  followed  the  fashion.  Is  it  not  in  the  power  of  newspa 
pers  to  spread  fashions  ;  and  by  dinning  burnings  and  murders 
in  every  body's  ears,  to  detain  all  rash  and  mischievous  tem 
pers  on  such  subjects,  long  enough  to  wear  out  the  first  im 
pression  of  horrour,  and  to  prepare  them  to  act  what  they  so 
familiarly  contemplate  ?  Yet  there  seems  to  be  a  sort  of  rival- 
ship  among  printers,  who  shall  have  the  most  wonders,  and 
the  strangest  and  most  horrible  crimes.  This  taste  will  mul 
tiply  prodigies.  The  superstitious  Romans  used  to  forbid  re 
ports  of  new  prodigies,  while  they  were  performing  sacrifices 
on  such  accounts. 

EVERY  horrid  story  in  a  newspaper  produces  a  shock  ;  but, 
after  some  time,  this  shock  lessens.  At  length,  such  stories 
are  so  far  from  giving  pain,  that  they  rather  raise  curiosity, 
and  we  desire  nothing  so  much,  as  the  particulars  of  terrible 
tragedies.  The  wonder  is  as  easy  as  to  stare ;  and  the  most 
vacant  mind  is  the  most  in  need  of  such  resources  as  cost  no 
trouble  of  scrutiny  or  reflection :  it  is  a  sort  of  food  for  idle 
curiosity,  that  is  ready  chewed  and  digested. 

ON  the  whole,  we  may  insist,  that  the  increasing  fashion  for 
printing  wonderful  tales  of  crimes  and  accidents  is  worse  than 
ridiculous,  as  it  corrupts  both  the  publick  taste  and  morals.  It 
multiplies  fables,  prodigious  monsters,  and  crimes,  and  thus 
makes  shocking  things  familiar  ;  while  it  withdraws  all  popular 
attention  from  familiar  truth,  because  it  is  not  shocking. 


HERCULES.  225 

Now,  Messrs.  Printers,  I  pray  the  whole  honourable  craft, 
to  banish  as  many  murders,  and  horrid  accidents,  and  mon 
strous  births  and  prodigies  from  their  gazettes,  as  their  readers 
will  permit  them ;  and,  by  degrees,  to  coax  them  back  to  con 
template  life  and  manners ;  to  consider  common  events  with 
some  common  sense  ;  and  to  study  nature,  where  she  can  be 
known,  rather  than  in  those  of  her  ways,  where  she  really  is, 
or  is  represented  to  be,  inexplicable. 

STRANGE  events  are  facts,  and  as  such  should  be  mentioned, 
but  with  brevity  and  in  a  cursory  manner.  They  afford  no 
ground  for  popular  reasoning  or  instruction ;  and,  therefore,  the 
horrid  details,  that  make  each  particular  hair  stiffen  and  stand 
upright  in  the  reader's  head,  ought  not  to  be  given.  In  short, 
they  must  be  mentioned ;  but  sensible  printers  and  sensible 
readers  will  think  that  way  of  mentioning  them  the  best,  that 
impresses  them  least  on  the  publick  attention,  and  that  hurries 
them  on  the  most  swiftly  to  be  forgotten. 


29 


L    226    1 

NO  REVOLUTIONIST. 

First  published  in  the  Palladium,  November,  1801. 

1VJ.ANY  persons  seem  to  despair  of  the  commonwealth. 
They  say,  it  is  evident,  a  violent  jacobin  administration  is  begun. 
The  address  to  the  popular  passions,  they  argue,  is  generally 
successful ;  and  always  very  encouragingly  rejected,  even  when 
it  is  not.  While  federalists  rely  on  the  sense  of  the*  people, 
the  jacobins  appeal  to  their  nonsense  with  infinite  advantage  : 
they  affect  to  be  entirely  on  the  people's  side  ;  and  their  mis 
take,  if,  by  great  good  luck,  it  is  supposed  they  err,  is  ascribed 
to  a  good  motive,  in  a  manner  and  spirit  that  invites  fresh 
attempts  to  deceive.  Thus  the  deceivers  of  the  people  tire 
out  their  adversaries  ;  they  tiy  again  and  again  ;  and  an  attempt 
that  is  never  abandoned,  at  last  will  not  fail.  What  then,  it  is 
asked,  can  be  done  ?  We  have  an  enlightened  people,  who  are 
not  poor,  and,  therefore,  are  interested  to  keep  jacobinism 
down,  which  ever  seeks  plunder  as  the  end,  and  confusion  as 
the  means.  Yet  the  best  informed  of  this  mighty  people  are 
lazy  ;  or  ambitious,  and  go  over  to  the  cause  of  confusion ;  or 
are  artfully  rendered  unpopular,  because  they  will  not  go  over 
to  it.  The  sense,  and  virtue,  and  property  of  the  nation,  there 
fore,  will  not  govern  it ;  but  every  day  shews,  that  its  vice,  and 
poverty,  and  ambition  will.  We  have  been  mistaken.  In  our 
affairs,  we  have  only  thought  of  what  was  to  be  hindered,  and 
provided  sufficiently  for  nothing  that  was  to  be  done.  We 
have  thought  that  virtue,  with  so  many  bright  rewards,  had 
some  solid  power  ;  and  that,  with  ten  thousand  charms,  she 
could  always  command  a  hundred  thousand  votes.  Alas  !  thesr 
illusions  are  as  thin  as  the  gloss  on  other  bubbles.  Politician 
have  supposed,  that  man  really  is  what  he  should  be  ;  that  hi 
reason  will  do  all  it  can,  and  his  passions  and  prejudice  n« 


NO  REVOLUTIONIST.  227 

more  than  they  ought ;  whereas  his  reason  is  a  mere  looker-on ; 
it  is  moderation,  when  it  should  be  zeal ;  is  often  corrupted 
to  vindicate,  where  it  should  condemn  ;  and  is  a  coward  or  a 
trimmer,  that  will  take  hush-money.  Popular  reason  does  not 
always  know  how  to  act  right,  nor  does  it  always  act  right, 
when  it  knows.  The  agents  that  move  politicks,  are  the  popu 
lar  passions ;  and  those  are  ever,  from  the  very  nature  of  things, 
under  the  command  of  the  disturbers  of  society.  While  those 
who  would  defend  order,  and  property,  and  right,  the  real 
friends  of  law  and  liberty,  have  a  great  deal  to  say  to  silence 
passion,  but  nothing  to  offer  that  will  satisfy  it ;  nothing  that 
will  convince  a  sans-culotte  that  his  ignorance,  or  vice,  and  lazi 
ness,  ordain  that  he  should  be  poor,  while  a  demagogue  tells 
him  it  is  the  funding  system  that  makes  him  poor,  and  revo 
lution  shall  make  him  rich.  Few  can  reason,  all  can  feel ;  and 
such  an  argument  is  gained,  as  soon  as  it  is  proposed.  While 
then  the  popular  passions  are  sure  to  govern,  and  the  reason 
of  the  society  is  sure  to  be  awed  into  silence,  or  to  be  disre 
garded,  if  it  is  heard,  what  hope  is  there  that  our  course  will 
not  be  as  headlong,  as  rapid,  and  as  fatal,  as  that  of  every 
government  by  mere  popular  impulse  has  ever  been  ?  The 
turnpike  road  of  history  is  white  with  the  tombstones  of  such 
republicks. 

ANSWER.— .If  our  government  must  fall,  as.it  may  very 
deplorably,  and  soon,  and  as  it  certainly  must  with  a  violent 
jacobin  administration,  let  the  monstrous  wickedness  of  work 
ing  its  downfal  really  be,  and  appear,  if  possible,  to  the  whole 
people  to  be  chargeable  to  the  jacobins.  Let  the  federalists 
cling  to  it,  while  it  has  life  in  it,  and  even  longer  than  there 
is  hope.  Let  them  be  auxiliary  to  its  virtues  ;  let  them 
contend  for  its  corpse,  as  for  the  body  of  Patroclus ;  and  let 
them  reverence  its  memory.  Let  them  delay,  if  they  cannot 
prevent,  its  fate  ;  and  let  them  endeavour  so  to  animate,  in 
struct,  and  combine  the  true  friends  of  liberty,  that  a  new  repub 
lican  system  may  be  raised  on  the  foundations  of  the  present 
government.  Despair  not  only  hastens  the  evil,  but  renders  any 


NO  REVOLUTIONIST. 

remedy  unavailing.  Time,  that  sooths  all  other  sufferings,  will 
bring  no  relief  to  us,  if  we  neglect  or  throw  away  the  means 
in  our  hands.  What  are  they  ?  Truth  and  argument.  They  are 
feeble  means,  feeble  indeed,  against  prejudice  and  passion ; 
yet  they  are  all  we  have,  and  we  must  try  them.  They  will 
be  jury  masts,  if  we  are  shipwrecked. 

THE  managers  of  the  filan  of  confusion,  are  not  numerous  : 
for  that  reason,  they  are  the  better  united.  They  are  a  desperate 
gang,  chiefly  resident  in  the  city  of  New-York,  in  Pennsylvania, 
and  Virginia.  No  men  on  earth  more  despise  democracy  ;  or 
are  more  overbearing  in  their  dispositions ;  or  form  vaster 
plans  of  personal  aggrandizement.  Yet,  as  they  have  need  of 
the  democrats,  who  are  more  numerous,  are  honester,  and 
more  in  credit  than  the  jacobins,  they  are  obliged  to  make  use 
of  them.  They  flatter  and  deceive,  and  will  surely  betray  them, 
as  CromweJl  and  the  independents  did  the  presbyteriuns,  in 
1648,  in  England. 

THEY  will  abolish  credit,  by  taxing  the  funds  ;  they  will 
abolish  justice,  by  transferring  the  judiciary  to  the  states,  that 
is,  to  Virginia.  They  will  push  on  the  democratick  traders 
to  do  violent  things,  which  will  surely  make  them  odious ;  and 
then  they  will  expect,  that  the  resentments  of  the  honest  federal 
ists  will  assist  the  jacobins  to  supplant  the  democrats.  The 
ruling  party  contains  within  itself  the  seeds  of  discord  ;  yet, 
though  the  revolutionary  spirit,  once  indulged,  naturally  leads 
to  changes,  they  are  sure  to  be  changes  for  the  worse  :  a  more 
violent  faction  will  dispossess  one  that  is  moderate. 

THE  question,  therefore,  seems  to  be,  how  far  we  shall  pro 
bably  travel  in  the  revolutionary  road  ;  and  whether  there  is 
any  stopping  place,  any  hope  of  taking  breath,  as  we  run. 
towards  the  bottomless  pit,  into  which  the  revolutionary  fury 
is  prone  to  descend.  France  had  twenty  three  millions  poor, 
and  one  million  rich  ;  America  has  twenty  three  persons  at 
ease,  to  one  in  want.  Our  rabble  is  not  numerous;  and  a 
reform  in  our  elections  ought  to  exclude  those,  who  have 
nothing,  or  almost  nothing,  from  the  control  of  every  thing. 


NO  REVOLUTIONIST.  2^9 

Our  assailants  are,  therefore,  weaker,  and  our  means  of  defence 
greater  than  the  first  patriots  of  France  possessed  ;  our  good 
men,  instead  of  running  away,  like  the  French  emigrants,  and 
giving  up  their  estates  to  confiscation,  must  stay  at  home,  and 
exert  their  talents  and  influence  to  save  the  country.  Events 
may  happen  to  baffle  the  schemes  of  jacobinism  ;  and  if  New- 
England  should  not  be  sleepy  or  infatuated,  of  which  there  is, 
unhappily,  great  danger,  our  adversaries  will  never  be  able  to 
push  the  work  of  mischief  to  its  consummation. 


[    230    ] 
EQUALITY.    N°.  I. 

First  published  in  the  Pallarlwm,  November,  1801. 


TH 


ERE  are  some  popular  maxims,  which  are  scarcely 
credited  as  true,  and  yet  are  cherished  as  precious,  and  de 
fended  as  even  sacred.  Most  of  the  democratick  articles  of 
faith  are  blended  with  truth,  and  seem  to  be  true  ;  and  they  so 
comfortably  sooth  the  pride  and  envy  of  the  heart,  that  it 
swells  with  resentment,  when  they  are  contested,  and  suffers 
some  spasms  of  apprehension,  even  when  they  are  examined. 
Mr.  Thomas  Paine's  writings  abound  with  this  sort  of  specious 
falsehoods  and  perverted  truths.  Of  all  his  doctrines  none, 
perhaps,  has  created  more  agitation  and  alarm  than  that,  which 
proclaims  to  all  men,  that  they  arc  free  and  equal.  This 
creed  is  older  than  its  supposed  author,  and  was  thread-bare 
in  America,  before  Mr.  Paine  ever  saw  our  shores ;  yet  it  had 
the  effect,  in  other  parts  of  the  world,  of  novelty.  It  was  ?iews) 
that  the  French  revolution  scattered  through  the  world.  It 
made  the  spirit  of  restlessness  and  innovation  universal.  Those 
who  could  not  be  ruled  by  reason,  resolved  that  they  would  not 
be  restrained  by  power.  Those  who  had  been  governed  by 
law,  hungered  and  thirsted  to  enjoy,  or  rather  to  exercise,  the 
new  prerogatives  of  a  democratick  majority,  which,  of  right, 
could  establish,  and,  for  any  cause  or  no  cause  at  all,  could 
change.  They  believed  that  by  making  their  own  and  other 
men's  passions  sovereign,  they  should  invest  man  with  imme 
diate  perfectibility,  and  breathe  into  their  regenerated  liberty 
an  ethereal  spirit  that  would  never  die.  Slaves  grew  weary 
of  their  chains,  and  freemen  sick  of  their  rights.  The  true 
liberty  had  no  charms,  but  such  as  the  philosophists  affirmed 
had  been  already  rifled.  The  lazaroni  of  Naples,  fifty  thou 
sand  houseless,  naked  wretches,  heard  of  their  rights  and  con 
sidered  their  wants  as  so  many  wrongs.  The  soldiers  of 
Prussia  were  ready  for  town-meetings.  Even  in  Constantino 
ple,  it  seemed  as  if  the  new  doctrine  would  overpower  the 


EQUALITY.  231 

sedative  action  of  opium,  and  stimulate  the  drowsy  Turks  to  a 
Parisian  frenzy.  It  is  not  strange,  that  slaves  should  sigh  for 
liberty,  as  for  some  unknown  good.  But  England  uinl  the 
United  States  of  America,  while  in  the  full  fruition  of  it,  were 
almost  tempted  to  renounce  its  possession  for  its  promise. 
Societies  were  formed  in  both  countries,  which  considered  and 
represented  their  patriotism  as  the  remnant  of  their  preju 
dices  ;  and  the  old  defences  of  their  liberty  as  the  fortresses  of 
an  enemy,  the  means  and  the  badges  of  their  slavish  subjec 
tion. 

ALL  men  being  free  and  equal,  rulers  become  our  servants, 
from  whom  we  claim  obligation,  though  we  do  not  admit  their 
right  to  exact  any.  This  generation,  being  equal  to  the  last, 
owes  no  obedience  to  its  institutions ;  and,  being  wiser,  owes 
them  not  even  deference.  It  would  be  treachery  to  man,  so 
long  obstructed  and  delayed  in  his  progress  towards  perfecti 
bility,  to  forbear  to  exercise  his  rights.  What  if  the  existing 
governments  should  resist  this  new  claim  of  the  people,  yet 
the  people  to  be  free,  have  only  to  will  it !  What  if  this  age 
should  bleed,  the  next,  or  the  twentieth  after  this,  will  be  dis 
encumbered  from  the  rubbish  of  the  gothick  building  that  we 
have  subverted ;  and  may  lay  the  foundations  of  liberty  as  deep, 
and  raise  the  pillars  of  its  temple  as  high,  as  those  who  think 
correctly  of  its  perpetuity  and  grandeur  can  desire. 

WITH  opinions  so  wild,  and  passions  so  fierce,  the  spirit  of 
democracy  has  been  sublimated  to  extravagance.  There  was 
nothing  in  the  danger  that  affected  other  men's  persons  or 
rights  that  could  intimidate,  nothing  in  their  sufferings  that 
could  melt  them.  They  longed  to  see  kings,  and  priests,  and 
nobles  «  xpiving  in  tortures.  This  humane  sentiment  Barlow 
has  e. .pressed  in  verse.  The  massacres  of  Paris,  the  siege  of 
Lyous,  the  dro  wirings  of  Nantz,  the  murders  in  the  name  of 
justice,  that  made  hosts  of  assassins  wreary  of  their  work,  were 
so  many  evils  necessary  to  bring  about  good,  or  only  so  many 
acts  of  just  retaliation  of  the  oppressed  upon  their  oppressors. 
Th»  "  enlightened"  philosophists  surveyed  the  agitations  of 
the  world,  as  if  they  did  not  live  in  it ;  as  if  they  occupied,  as 


232  EQUALITY. 

mere  spectators,  a  safe  position  in  some  star,  and  beheld  revo 
lutions  sometimes  brightening  the  disk  of  this  planet  with 
their  fires,  and  at  others  dimming  it  with  their  vapours.  They 
could  contemplate,  unmoved,  the  whirlwind,  lifting  the  hills 
from  their  base,  and  mixing  their  ruins  with  the  clouds.  They 
could  see  the  foundations  of  society  gaping  in  fissures,  as  when 
an  earthquake  struggles  from  the  centre.  A  true  philosopher 
is  superiour  to  humanity  :  he  could  walk  at  ease  over  this 
earth,  if  it  were  unpeopled  ;  he  could  tread,  with  all  the  plea 
sure  of  curiosity,  on  its  cinders,  the  day  after  the  final  confla 
gration. 

EQUALITY,  they  insist,  will  indemnify  mankind  for  all  these 
apprehensions  and  sufferings.  As  some  ages  of  war  and  anar 
chy  may  pass  away,  before  the  evils  incident  to  the  struggles 
of  a  revolution  are  exhausted,  this  generation  might  be  allow 
ed  to  have  some  cause  to  object  to  innovations,  that  are  c<?r- 
tainly  to  make  them  wretched,  although,  fiossibly,  the  grand 
children  of  their  grandchildren  may  be  the  better  for  their 
sufferings.  This  slender  hope,  however,  is  all  that  the  illu- 
minists  have  proposed,  as  the  indemnity  for  all  the  crimes  and 
misery  of  France,  and  all  the  horrours  of  the  new  revolutions, 
that  they  wish  to  engender  in  Europe,  from  the  Bosphorus  to 
the  Baltick.  jWhat  is  meant  by  this  boastful  equality  ?  and 
what  is  its  value  ? 


EQUALITY.     N°.  II. 

THE  philosophers  among  the  democrats  will  no  doubt  in 
sist,  that  they  do  not  mean  to  equalise  property,  they  contend 
only  for  ^an  equality  of  rights.  If  they  restrict  the  word  equality 
as  carefully  as  they  ought,  it  will  not  import,  that  all  men  have 
an  equal  right  to  all  things,  but,  that  to  whatever  they  have  a 
right,  it  is  as  much  to  be  protected  and  provided  for,  as  the 
right  of  any  persons  in  society.  In  this  sense,  nobody  Vill 
contest  their  claim.  Yet,  though  the  right  of  a  poor  man  is 


EQUALITY.  233 

as  much  his  right,  as  a  rich  man's,  there  is  no  great  novelty 
or  wisdom  in  the  discovery  of  the  principle,  nor  are  the 
French  entitled  to  any  pre-eminence  on  this  account.  The 
magna  charta  of  England,  obtained,  I  think,  in  the  year  1216, 
contains  the  great  body  of  what  is  called,  and  our  revolution 
ists  of  1776  called  it,  English  liberty.  This  they  claimed  as 
their  birth-right,  and  with  good  reason  ^  for  it  enacts,  that 
justice  shall  not  be  sold,  nor  denied,  nor  delayed  ;  and,  as, 
soon  afterwards,  the  trial  by  jury  grew  into  general  use, 
the  subjects  themselves  are  employed  by  the  government  to 
apply  remedies,  when  rights  are  violated.  For  true  equality 
and  the  rights  of  man,  there  never  was  a  better  or  a  wiser 
provision,  as,  in  fact,  it  executes  itself.  This  is  the  precious 
system  of  true  equality,  imported  by  our  excellent  and  ever 
to  be  venerated  forefathers,  which  they  prized  as  their  birth 
right.  Yet  this  glorious  distinction  of  liberty,  so  ample,  so 
stable,  and  so  temperate,  secured  by  the  common  law,  has 
been  reviled  and  exhibited  to  popular  abhorrence,  as  the 
shameful  badge  of  our  yet  colonial  dependence  on  England. 
As  the  common  law  secures  equally  all  the  rights  of  the 
citizens,  and  as  the  jacobin  leaders  loudly  decry  this  system, 
it  is  obvious,  that  they  extend  their  views  still  farther.  Un 
doubtedly,  they  include  in  their  plan  of  equality,  that  the  ci 
tizens  shall  have  assigned  to  them  new  rights,  and  different 
from  what  they  now  enjoy.  You  have  earned  your  estate, 
or  it  descended  to  you  from  your  father ;  of  course,  my 
right  to  your  estate  is  not  as  good  as  yours.  Am  I  then  to 
have,  in  the  new  order  of  things,  an  equal  right  with  you  ? 
Certainly  not,  every  democrat  of  any  understanding  will  re 
ply.  What  then  do  you  propose  by  your  equality  ?  You. 
have  earned  an  estate  ;  I  have  not ;  yet  I  have  a  right,  and 
as  good  a  right  as  another  man,  to  earn  it.  I  may  save  my 
earnings,  and  deny  myself  the  pleasures  and  comforts  of  life, 
till  I  have  laid  up  a  competent  sum  to  provide  for  my  infir 
mity  and  old  age.  All  cannot  be  rich,  but  all  have  a  right 
to  make  the  attempt ;  and  when  some  have  fully  succeeded, 
30 


234  EQUALITY. 

and  others  partially,  and  others  not  at  all,  the  several  states, 
in  which  they  then  find  themselves,  become  their  condition 
in  life  ;  and  whatever  the  rights  of  that  condition  may  be, 
they  are  to  be  faithfully  secured  by  the  laws  and  govern 
ment.  This,  however,  is  not  the  idea  of  the  men  of  the  new 
order  of  things^  for,  thus  far,  the  plan  belongs  to  a  very  old 
order  of  things.  ' 

THEY  consider  a  republican  government  as  the  only  one, 
in  which  this  sort  of  equality  can  exist  at  all.  A  tyrant,  or 
a  king,  which  all  democrats  suppose  to  be  words  of  like  im 
port,  might  leave  the  rights  of  his  subjects  unviolated.  The 
grand  seignior  is  arbitrary  ;  the  heavy  hand  of  his  despot 
ism  however  falls  only  on  the  great  men  in  office,  the  aristo 
crats,  whom  it  must  be  a  pleasure  to  the  admirers  of  equality 
to  see  strangled  by  the  bow-string ;  the  great  body  of  the 
subjects  of  the  Turkish  government  lead  a  very  undisturbed 
life,  enjoying  a  stupid  security  from  the  oppressions  of  pow 
er.  To  enjoy  rights,  without  having  proper  security  for 
their  enjoyment,  ought  not  indeed  to  satisfy  any  political 
reasoners,  and  this  is  precisely  the  difficulty  of  the  demo- 
cratick  sect.  All  the  rights  and  equality  they  admire  are 
destitute  of  any  rational  security,  and  are  of  a  nature  utterly 
subversive  of  all  true  liberty.  For,. on  close  examination,  it 
turns  out,  that  their  notion  of  equality  is,  that  all  the  citizens 
of  a  republick  have  an  equal  right  to  political  power.  This  is 
called  republicanism.  This  hastens  the  journey  of  a  dema 
gogue  to  power,  and  invests  him  with  the  title  of  the  man  of 
the  people.  This,  the  people  are  told,  is  their  great  cause, 
in  opposition  to  the  coalesced  tyrants  of  Europe,  and  the  in 
triguing  federal  aristocrats  in  America. 

LET  me  cut  out  the  tongue  of  that  blasphemer,  every  de- 
mocratick  zealot  will  exclaim,  who  dares  to  deny  the  right 
ful  and  unlimited  power  of  the  people.  It  is  indeed  a  very 
inveterate  evil  of  our  politicks,  that  popular  opinion  has  been 
formed  rather  to  democracy,  than  to  sober  republicanism. 
The  American  revolution  was, in  fact,  after  1776,  a  resistance 


EQUALITY.  235 

to  foreign  government.  We  claimed  the  right  to  govern  our 
selves,  and  our  patriots  never  contemplated  the  claim  of  the 
imported  united  Irish,  that  a  mob  should  govern  us.  It  is  true, 
that  the  checks  on  the  power  of  the  people  themselves  were 
not  deemed  so  necessary,  as  on  the  temporary  rulers  whom 
we  elected  :  we  looked  for  danger  on  the  same  side,  where 
we  had  been  used  to  look,  and  suspected  every  thing  but  our 
selves.  Our  dread  of  rulers  devoted  them  to  imbecility  ; 
our  presumptuous  confidence  in  ourselves  puffed  all  the 
weak,  and  credulous,  and  vain,  with  an  opinion,  that  no 
power  was  safe  but  their  own,  and,  therefore,  that  should  be 
uncontrollable  and  have  no  limits.  This  is  democracy,  and 
not  republicanism.  The  French  revolution  has  been  made 
the  instrument  of  faction  ;  it  has  multiplied  popular  errours, 
and  rendered  them  indocile.  Restraints  on  the  power  of  the 
people,  seem  to  all  democrats,  foolish,  for  how  shall  they 
restrain  themselves  ?  and  mischievous,  because-  as  they 
think,  the  power  of  the  people  is  their  liberty.  Restraints, 
that  make  it  less,  and,  on  every  inviting  occasion  for  mis 
chief  and  the  oppression  of  a  minority,  make  it  nothing, 
will  appear  to  be  the  abandonment  of  its  principles  and 
cause. 


EQUALITY.     N°.  III. 

ALL  democrats  maintain,  that  the  people  have  an  inherent, 
unalienable  right  to  power :  there  is  nothing  so  fixed,  that 
they  may  not  change  it ;  nothing  so  sacred,  that  their  voice, 
which  is  the  voice  of  God,  would  not  unsanctify  and  consign 
to  destruction  :  it  is  not  only  true,  that  no  king,  or  parliament, 
or  generation  past  can  bind  the  people  ;  but  they  cannot 
even  bind  themselves  :  the  will  of  the  majority  is  not  only 
law,  but  right :  having  an  unlimited  right  to  act  as  they  please, 
whatever  they  please  to  act  is  a  rule.  Thus,  virtue  itself, 


236  EQUALITY. 

thus,  publick  faith,  thus,  common  honesty,  are  no  more 
than  arbitrary  rules,  which  the  people  have,  as  yet,  abstained 
from  rescinding ;  and  when  a  confiscating  or  paper  money 
majority  in  congress  should  ordain  otherwise,  they  would  be 
no  longer  rules.  Hence,  the  worshippers  of  this  idol  ascribe 
to  it  attributes  inconsistent  with  all  our  ideas  of  the  Supreme 
Being  himself,  to  whom  we  deem  it  equally  impious  and 
absurd  to  impute  injustice.  Hence,  they  argue,  that  a  publick 
debt  is  a  burden  to  be  thrown  off,  whenever  the  people  grow 
weary  of  it  ;  and  hence,  they,  somewhat  inconsistently, 
pretend,  that  the  very  people  cannot  make  a  constitution, 
authorizing  any  restraint  upon  malicious  lying  against  the 
government.  So  that,  according  to  them,  neither  religion, 
nor  morals,  nor  policy,  nor  the  people  themselves  can  erect 
any  barrier  against  the  reasonable  or  the  capricious  exercise 
of  their  power.  Yet,  what  these  cannot  do,  the  spirit  of  sedi 
tion  can  ;  this  is  more  sacred  than  religion  or  justice,  and 
dearer  than  the  general  good  itself.  For  it  is  evident,  that, 
if  we  will  have  the  unrestricted  liberty  of  lying  against  our 
magistrates,  and  laws,  and  government,  we  can  have  no  other 
liberty  ;  and  the  clamorous  jacobins  have  decided,  that  such 
liberty,  without  any  other,  is  better  than  every  other  kind  of 
liberty  without  it. 

Is  it  true,  however,  (if  it  be  not  rebellion  to  inquire)  that 
this  uncontrolled  power  of  the  people  is  their  right,  and  that 
it  is  absolutely  essential  to  their  liberty  ?  All  our  individual 
rights  are  to  be  exercisecl  with  due  regard  to  the  rights  of 
others  ;  they  are  tied  fast  by  restrictions,  and  are  to  be  exer 
cisecl  within  certain  reasonable  limits.  How  is  it,  then,  that 
the  democrats  find  a  right  in  the  whole  people  so  much 
more  extensive,  than  what  belongs  to  any  one  of  their  num 
ber  ?  In  other  cases,  the  extremes  of  any  principle  are  so 
many  departures  from  principle.  Why  is  it,  then,  that  they 
make  popular  right  to  consist  wholly  in  extremes,  and  thai 
so  absolutely?  that,  without  such  boundless  pretensions,  they 
say  it  could  not  subsist  at  all  ?  Checks  on  the  people  them 
selves  are  not  merely  clogs,  but  chains.  They  are  usurjia- 


EQUALITY.  23r 

tions,  which  should  be  abolished,  even  if  in  practice  they 
prove  useful ;  for,  they  will  tell  you,  precedent  sanctions 
and  introduces  tyranny.  Neither  Commodus  nor  Caligula 
were  ever  so  flattered  with  regard  to  the  extent  of  their 
power,  and  the  impiety  of  setting  bounds  to  it,  as  any  people 
who  listen  to  demagogues. 

THE  writings  of  Thomas  Paine,  and  the  democratick  news 
papers  will  evince,  that  this  representation  of  their  doctrine 
is  not  caricatured  :  it  is  not  more  extravagant  than  they 
represent  it  themselves.  They  often,  indeed,  affirm,  that 
they  are  not  admirers  of  a  mere  democracy  :  they  know  it 
will  prove  licentious  :  they  are  in  favour  of  an  energetick 
government. 

IT  is  both  more  satisfactory  and  more  safe,  to  trust  to  the 
conduct  of  a  party,  than  their  professions.  What  says  the 
conduct  of  the  party  ?  Either  the  power  of  the  people  in 
the  United  States  is  absolutely  uncontrolled,  or  the  executive 
authority,  the  senate,  and  the  courts  of  law,  are  the  branches 
constituted  to  check  it.  Now,  is  it  not  notorious,  that  one 
great  complaint  of  the  jacobins  against  the  federalists  is,  that 
the  latter  are  friendly  to  the  executive  department.  They 
are,  on  the  contrary,  the  friends  of  the  people,  and  on  all 
occasions  bold  and  eager  to  enlarge  their  privileges  and  influ 
ence  in  the  government.  It  is  not  amiss  to  notice,  though 
it  is  somewhat  of  a  digression,  that,  of  late,  the  jacobins  vin 
dicate,  in  their  own  president,  an  extent  of  executive  power 
and  patronage,  such  as  neither  Washington,  nor  Adams, 
nor  their  friends,  ever  thought  of  claiming,  or  exercising. 
They  say  it  is  right,  that  the  president  should  displace 
all  federalists,  and  thus  all  officers  become  his  creatures 
and  dependents.  Thus,  a  standing  army  of  corruption  is 
to  be  formed,  to  be  drawn  out  in  array  on  every  election. 
When  the  British  treaty  was  depending,  these  men  contend 
ed,  that  no  treaty  was  binding,  after  being  ratified  by  the 
president  and  senate,  until  the  immediate  representatives 
of  the  people  had  approved  it.  This  was  Mr.  Gallatm's 
disorganizing  and  unconstitutional  doctrine.  Yet  every  cle- 


-238  EQUALITY. 

mocrat  extols  Mr.  Jefferson  for  delivering  up  the  Berceau, 
and  carrying  the  French  treaty  into  full  effect,  before  con 
gress  has  even  met  to  consider  it.  Even  this  house  of  repre 
sentatives,  that  was  thus  to  be  supreme  over  the  supreme 
treaty-making  power,  was  nevertheless  to  be  subject  to  a 
power  superiour  to  itself.  The  people  of  any  district  could 
instruct  their  members,  and  such  instructions  bind  him 
against  the  plain  dictates  of  his  honour  and  conscience :  he 
must  be  a  rebel  to  the  people,  if  he  will  not  be  perjured. 

BESIDES,  the  remonstrances  of  any  description  of  citizens 
are  so  many  expressions  of  the  will  of  the  sovereign,  and 
being  his  willy  ought  to  become  law.  Thus  congress  is  to 
be,  in  all  its  branches,  somewhat  less  than  a  mother  jacobin 
club,  which  has  ever  been  allowed  to  prescribe  rules  of  con 
duct  to  its  affiliated  clubs.  The  senate  is  as  little  spared  in 
this  plan  of  apportionment  of  power  by  the  democrats  :  they 
uniformly  denominate  this  body  the  dark  divan,  the  conclave, 
the  aristocratick  branch  of  the  government.  The  famous 
Virginia  amendments,  proposed,  when  democracy  was  in  its 
zenith,  to  render  this  branch  null,  and  to  make  it  less  a 
barrier  against  licentiousness  than  its  convenient  instrument. 
Let  every  thinking  man  read  those  amendments  with  atten 
tion,  and  he  will  see,  that  to  reform  our  government  was  not 
the  object,  but  to  subvert  it. 

IN  point  of  theory,  notions  somewhat  more  correct  have 
prevailed  in  regard  to  the  judiciary.  Yet,  even  on  this  point, 
at  this  moment,  the  democratick  gazettes  assure  us,  that 
their  majority  will  abolish  the  new  judiciary  by  repealing 
the  law.  Thus,  the  judges  are  to  hold  their  offices  during 
good  behaviour :  they  cannot  be  removed  at  pleasure  ;  but, 
as  they  stand  upon  the  law,  that  very  foundation,  the  demo 
crats  tell  us,  can  be  torn  up.  So  that  one  great  barrier  of 
the  constitution,  erected  to  answer  the  ends  of  justice  and 
publick  safety,  when  either  government  or  the  people  them 
selves  "  feel  power  and  forget  right,"  may  be  subverted 
Indirectly^  though  not  directly  :  the  democrats  cannot  get 


EQUALITY.  239 

ever  if  ;  but  they  say  they  will  get  round  it.  Instead  of  stop 
ping  the  flood  of  democratick  licentiousness,  this  dam  is  to 
be  the  first  obstacle  that  is  swept  away. 

LET  the  considerate  friends  of  rational  liberty  decide  then 
from  facts,  from  the  most  authentickand  solemn  transactions 
of  the  democratick  party,  whether  there  be  any  check,  limi 
tation,  or  control,  that  they  would  impose  on  the  people ;  or 
any  now  existing,  that  they  would  not  first  weaken  and  then 
abolish.  If  the  sober  citizens  really  wish  for  a  simple  demo 
cracy,  and  that  the  power  of  the  people  shall  be  arbitrary 
and  uncontrollable,  then  let  them  weigh  the  consequences 
well,  before  they  consent  to  the  tremendous  changes  that 
the  federal  government  must  undergo,  before  it  will  be  fit 
for  a  democracy.  Let  them  consider  the  sacrifices  of  liberty, 
as  well  as  order,  of  blood,  as  well  as  treasure,  that  this  sort 
of  government  never  fails  to  exact ;  and  if,  on  due  reflection, 
they  choose  these  consequences,  then  let  them  elect,  and  let 
them  follow  in  arms,  the  men  who  are  so  much  infatuated 
to  bring  them  about ;  for  "  infuriated  man  will  seek  his  long- 
"  lost  liberty  through  desolation  and  carnage."  If,  however, 
they  prefer  the  constitution,  as  it  was  made,  and  as  it  has 
been  honestly  administered,  they  will  cling  to  the  old  cause 
and  the  old  friends  of  federal  republicanism,  which  they  have 
tried  in  trying  times,  and,  of  course,  know  how  to  value  and 
to  trust. 


EQUALITY.     N°.  IV. 

THERE  is  perhaps  no  country  in  the  world,  where  vision 
ary  theory  has  done  so  much  to  darken  political  knowledge, 
as  in  France,  nor  where  facts  appear  at  length  so  conspi 
cuously  to  enlighten  it.  The  doctrines  of  equality,  and 
the  rights  of  man,  and  the  uncontrolled  power  of  the  people, 
whose  voice  is,  rather  unintelligibly,  said  to  be  the  voice  of 
God,  have  been  so  prevalent,  that  most  persons  have  allowed 
the  French  to  be  political  discoverers  j  and  that  they  were, 


240  EQUALITY. 

certainly,  not  God's,  but  some  other  being's,  chosen  people, 
selected  to  preserve  the  true  faith  in  poliiicks  from  corrup 
tion  and  oblivion.  These  lofty  claims  French  modesty  urged 
in  every  country,  as  if  they  were  Romans,  and  the  others, 
barbarians.  Our  jiatriotick  sophists  very  meekly  admitted 
their  claim. 

TIME  is  as  little  a  friend  to  folly,  as  to  hypocrisy.  It 
obliges  the  intemperate  sometimes  to  be  sober,  and  makes 
knavery  tired  of  its  mask.  The  French  revolutipnary  gov 
ernment  is  now  in  its  teens,  and  we  are  compelled,  with 
some  steadiness  of  attention,  to  behold  those  features,  which 
democratick  fondness  shut  its  eyes  to  imagine  were  divine 
in  its  cradle.  Never  was  popular  admiration  more  extrava 
gant  ;  never  were  its  disappointments  more  signal  or  com 
plete.  The  French  revolution  is  one  of  those  dire  events, 
that  cannot  happen  without  danger,  nor  end  without  advantage 
to  mankind.  It  is  a  rare  inundation,  whose  ravages  shew  the 
utmost  high-water  mark :  an  earthquake,  that  has  laid  bare 
a  mine  :  a  comet,  whose  track  through  the  sky,  while  it  scat 
ters  pestilence,  excites  the  curiosity  of  astronomers,  and 
rewards  it. 

WHEN  the  French  revolution  began,  many  of  the  best,  and 
even  some  few  of  the  wisest,  rejoiced  in  some  of  the  most 
pernicious,  and  most  absurd  of  its  measures.  Down  with  the 
nobles,  was  the  cry  of  the  Tiers  Etat,  or  third  estate,  and  it  was 
echoed  here :  let  all  the  three  orders  vote  in  one  chamber,  in 
other  words,  let  there  be  but  one  order,  the  democratick : 
that  will  rule  and  the  others  bleed.  'Down  with  the  priest 
hood,  was  the  next  cry :  abuses  so  great  have  been  tolerated 
too  long :  we  reform  too  late,  and  therefore  we  cannot  re 
form  too  much.  The  many  millions  of  church  property 
were,  of  course,  by  a  simple  vote  of  a  majority,  re-annexed, 
as  they  called  robbery,  to  the  nation.  The  nobles  were  next 
dismounted  in  an  evening's  sitting,  and  in  a  fit  of  emulation 
in  extravagance.  All  was  done  without  reasoning  and  by 
acclamation.  The  sovereign  mob  of  the  suburbs  of  Paris. 


EQUALITY.  241 

called  St.  Antoine  and  Rue  Marcel,  were  next  employed.  The 
bastile  was  taken ;  liberty  celebrated  her  triumphs,  she  trod 
upon  a  plain,  on  the  rubbish  of  her  tyrants*  palaces,  whose 
ruins  were  not  left  as  high  as  their  foundations.  Her  path 
seemed  to  be  smooth ;  all  obstacles  were  removed ;  all  men 
were  free  and  equal ;  those  who  had  rescued  liberty  by  their 
blood  were  ready  to  shed  it  in  her  defence.  Where  are  her 
friends  ?  Behold  them  arrayed  in  armies,  brandishing  their 
pikes.  Where  are  her  enemies?  See  their  heads  dropping 
gore  on  those  pikes.  Is  not  the  danger  over  ?  Is  not  the  vic 
tory  won  ?  Are  not  the  French  free,  and  perfectly  secure  in 
their  freedom  ? 

EVERY  sagacious  democrat  answered  all  these  questions  in 
the  affirmative. 

NOBODY  seemed  any  longer  to  have  power,  but  the  people. 
They  had  all  power,  and,  of  course,  unbounded  liberty.  How 
little  is  it  considered,  that  arbitrary  power,  no  matter  whether 
of  prince  or  people,  makes  tyranny ;  and  that  in  salutary  re 
straint  is  liberty.  A  stupid,  ferocious  multitude,  who  are  unfit 
to  be  free,  may  play  the  tyrant  for  a  day,  just  long  enough  to 
put  a  sceptre  of  iron  into  their  leader's  hand.  To  use  quaint 
language,  in  order  to  be  the  more  intelligible,  it  may  be  said, 
that,  when  there  is  no  end  to  the  power  of  a  multitude,  there 
can  be  no  beginning  to  their  liberty. 

REVIEW  the  transactions  in  France  since  1789,  and  it  will 
appear,  that  there  is  no  condition  of  a  state,  in  which  it  is 
more  impossible  that  liberty  should  subsist,  or  more  nearly 
impossible  that,  after  being  lost,  it  should  be  retrieved,  than 
after  order  has  been  overthrown,  and  popular  licentiousness 
triumphs  in  its  stead. 

THE  old  government  of  France  was  a  bad  one  ;  but  the  new 
order  of  things  was  infinitely  worse.  Most  persons  suppose 
this  is  to  be  ascribed  to  the  excess  of  liberty ;  they  think  there 
was  too  much  of  a  good  thing.  Now  the  truth  is,  there  was 
no  liberty  at  all — absolutely  none  from  the  first,  no  reasonable 
hope,  scarcely  a  lucky  chance  for  it.  Who  had  liberty  ?  Clearly 
not  the  king,  the  nobles,  nor  the  priests,  nor  the  king's  minis- 


242  EQUALITY. 

ters;  all  these  were  in  jeopardy  from  the  14th  July,  1789. 
not  the  rich ;  they  were  robbed  and  driven  into  banishment : 
not  the  great  military  officers  who  had  gained  glory  in  the 
American  war ;  they  were  slain  :  not  the  farmers  ;  their  harvests 
and  their  sons  were  in  requisition :  not  the  merchants ;  they 
were  so  stripped,  that  their  race  was  extinct ;  they  were  known 
only  on  the  grave-stones  of  Nantz  and  Lyons  ;  they  were  re 
membered  in  France,  like  the  mammoth,  by  their  bones.  But, 
say  the  democrats,  the  people,  the  many,  in  other  words,  the 
rabble  of  the  cities,  were  free  :  bread  was  issued  to  them  by 
the  publick.  Yes,  but  it  was  the  bread  of  soldiers,  for  which 
they  were  enrolled  as  national  guards  to  uphold  the  tyranny  of 
robbers  and  usurpers ;  and  as  soon  as  this  very  rabble  relucted 
at  their  work,  the  more  desperate  cut-throats  from  Marseilles 
were  called  for,  to  shoot  them  in  the  streets. 

IT  is  often  said,  that  the  monarchy  of  France  was  forcibly 
upheld  by  the  army.  There  is  much  incorrectness  in  the 
prevailing  notions  on  this  point.  Without  pausing  to  consider 
them,  it  may  be  sufficient  to  say,  that  the  leaders  of  the  revo 
lution,  apprehending  that  they  should  have  an  army  against 
them,  very  early  determined  that  they  would  have  also  an 
army  on  their  side.  By  a  simple  vote,  raising  the  pay  of  the 
king's  soldiers,  they  detached  the  troops  from  his  side  to  their 
own ;  and,  still  further  to  augment  their  military  force,  they 
enlisted  the  rabble  of  all  the  cities  as  national  guards.  Thus 
France  was  still  governed  by  an  army,  but  this  army  was  itself 
governed  by  new  chiefs.  The  people  were  more  than  ever 
subject  to  military  power. 

Now  it  would  be  a  pleasant  task  for  the  democratick  de- 
claimers  to  shew,  that  martial  law  is  liberty  ;  and  as  there  never 
was  a  half  hour  since  July,  1789,  when  a  man  in  France  had 
any  other  rights,  but  such  as  that  law  saw  fit  to  spare,  they 
ought  now  to  tell  us,  as  they  gave  no  reason  at  the  time,  why 
they  roasted  oxen  on  account  of  the  triumphs  of  French  liberty. 

THE  nature  of  that  precious  liberty  deserves  some  further 
consideration. 


EQUALITY.  243 


EQUALITY.     NO.  V. 

THE  French  are  very  unjustly  accused  of  having  lost  their 
liberty :  they  never  had  it.  The  old  government  was  not  u 
free  one,  and  the  violence  that  demolished  it  was  not  liberty. 
The  leaders  were,  from  the  first,  as  much  the  sovereigns  as 
the  Bourbon  kings.  A  mob  would  disperse  in  an  hour  with 
out  a  leader,  and  that  leader  has  immediately  an  authority,  of 
all  despots  the  most  absolute,  though  the  most  precarious.  To 
destroy  the  monarchy,  the  resort  was  to  force,  not  to  the  peo 
ple  ;  and  who,  in  those  times  of  violence,  had  any  liberty,  but 
the  possessors  of  that  force  ?  No  liberty  was  then  thought 
more  valuable,  than  that  of  running  away  from  mob  tyranny. 

ACCORDINGLY,  the  standing  army,  which  had  been  only 
two  hundred  thousand  strong,  was  suddenly  increased  to  half  a 
million.  The  ruin  of  trade  and  manufactories  compelled 
scores  of  thousands  to  become  soldiers  for  bread.  All  France 
was  soon  filled  with  terrour,  pillage,  and  massacre.  It  is  ab 
surd,  though  for  a  time  it  was  the  fashion,  to  call  that  nation 
free,  which  was,  at  that  very  period  of  its  supposed  emancipa 
tion,  subject  to  martial  law,  and  bleeding  under  its  lash.  The 
rights  of  a  Frenchman  were  never  less,  nor  was  there  ever  a 
time  when  he  so  little  dared  to  resist  or  even  to  complain. 

THE  kings  of  France,  it  is  true,  had  a  great  military  force, 
but  the  new  liberty-leaders  had  as  much  again.  They  used  it, 
avowedly,  to  strike  terrour  into  those  they  were  pleased  to  call 
counter-revolutionists ;  in  other  words,  to  drive  into  exile 
nearly  a  million  nobles,  priests,  rich  people,  and  women  :  eve 
ry  description  of  persons,  whom  they  hated,  feared  or  wished 
to  plunder,  was  placed  on  the  proscribed  list.  All  the  kings 
of  France,  from  the  days  of  Pharamond  and  Clovis,  down  to 
the  last  of  the  Bourbon  race,  did  not  exercise  despotick  power 
on  so  great  a  scale,  nor  with  such  horrid  cruelty.  If  the 
French  were  slaves  under  their  kings,  their  masters  did  not 
tiy  to  aggravate  the  weight  of  their  chains  :  the  people  were 
sometimes  spared  because  they  were  a  property ;  because 


244  EQUALITY. 

their  kings  had  an  interest  in  their  lives,  and  some  in  their 
affections,  but  none  in  their  sufferings.  The  republican  French 
have  not  whispered  their  griefs,  without  hazard  of  a  spy ;  they 
have  not  lingered  in  their  servile  tasks,  without  bleeding  un 
der  the  whips  of  their  usurpers. 

YET  this  extremity  of  degradation  and  wretchedness,  has 
been  celebrated  as  a  triumph.  Americans  have  been  made 
discontented  with  their  liberty,  because  it  was  so  much  less  an 
object  of  desire,  a  condition  so  inferiour  in  distinction  to  that 
of  the  French. 

WHILE  the  kings  reigned,  they  permitted  the  laws  to  gov 
ern,  at  least,  as  much  as  their  quiet  and  security  would  allow : 
and  when  they  used  military  force  to  seize  the  members  of 
the  parliament  of  Paris,  and  to  detain  them  prisoners  for  their 
opposition  to  their  edicts,  the  ferment  in  the  nation  soon  in 
duced  them  to  set  them  at  liberty.  Thus,  it  appears,  that  the 
rigours  of  despotism  once  had  something  existing  to  counter 
act  and  to  soften  them  ;  but  since  the  revolution,  the  popular 
passions  have  been  invariably  excited  and  employed  to  furnish 
arms  to  tyrants,  and  never  to  snatch  them  out  of  their  hands  ; 
to  overtake  fugitive  wretches,  and  to  invent  new  torments. 

THIS,  bad  as  it  is,  is  the  natural  course  of  things.  Liberty 
is  not  to  be  enjoyed,  indeed  it  cannot  exist,  without  the  habits 
of  just  subordination :  it  consists,  not  so  much  in  removing  all 
restraint  from  the  orderly,  as  in  imposing  it  on  the  violent. 
Now  the  first  step  in  a  revolution,  is  to  make  these  restraints 
appecy*  unjust  and  debasing,  and  to  induce  the  multitude  to 
throw  them  off;  in  other  words,  to  give  daggers  to  ruffians, 
and  to  lay  bare  honest  men's  hearts.  By  exalting  their  pas 
sions  to  rage  and  frenzy,  and  leading  them  on,  before  they 
cool,  to  take  bastiies,  and  overturn  altars,  and  thrones,  a  mad 
populace  are  well  fitted  for  an  army,  but  they  are  spoiled  for  a 
republick.  Having  enemies  to  contend  with,  and  leaders  to 
fight  for,  the  contest  is  managed  by  force,  and  the  victory 
brings  joy  only  as  it  secures  booty  and  vengeance.  The  con 
quering  faction  soon  divides,  and  one  part  arrays  its  partizans 
in  arms  against  the  other ;  or,  more  frequently,  by  treachery 


EQUALITY.  245 

and  surprise  cuts  off  the  chiefs  of  the  adverse  faction,  and 
they  reduce  it  to  weakness  and  slavery.  Then  more  booty, 
more  blood,  and  new  triumphs  for  liberty  ! ! 

IT  is  not  because  there  are  not  malecontents,  it  is  not  be 
cause  tyranny  has  not  rendered  scores  of  thousands  desperate, 
that  civil  war  has  not,  without  ceasing,  ravaged  that  country, 
But  the  despotism,  that  continually  multiplies  wretches,  care 
fully  disarms  them  :  it  so  completely  engrosses  all  power  to 
itself,  as  to  discourage  alF  resistance.  Indeed,  the  only  power 
in  the  state  is  that  of  the  sword  ;  and  while  the  army  obeys 
the  general,  the  nation  must  obey  the  army.  Hence  it  has 
been,  that  civil  war  has  not  raged.  The  people  were  nothing, 
and,  of  course,  no  party  among  them  could  prepare  the  force 
to  resist  the  tyrants  in  Paris.  Hence  France  has  appeared  to 
be  tranquil  in  its  slavery,  and  has  been  forced  to  celebrate 
feasts  for  the  liberty  it  had  not.  They  have  often  changed 
their  tyrants,  but  never  their  tyranny,  not  even  in  the  mode 
and  instruments  of  its  operation.  An  armed  force  has  been 
the  only  mode  from  the  first,  which  free  governments  may 
render  harmless,  because  they  may  keep  it  subordinate  to  the 
civil  power :  this  despotick  states  cannot  do. 

THE  mock  "republican"  leaders,  as  they  affect  to  call 
themselves,  but  the  jacobin  chiefs  in  America,  as  they  are 
known  and  called,  are  the  close  imitators  of  these  French  ex 
amples.  They  use  the  same  popular  cant,  and  address  them 
selves  to  the  same  classes  of  violent  and  vicious  rabble.  Our 
Condorcets  and  Rolands  are  already  in  credit  and  in  power.  It 
would  not  be  difficult  to  shew,  that  their  notions  of  liberty  are 
not  much  better  than  those  of  the  French.  If  Americans 
adopt  them,  and  attempt  to  administer  our  orderly  and  right 
ful  government  by  the  agency  of  the  popular  passions,  we 
shall  lose  our  liberty  at  first,  and  in  the  very  act  of  making 
the  attempt ;  next  we  shall  see  our  tyrants  invade  every  pos 
session  that  could  tempt  their  cupidity,  and  violate  every  right 
that  could  obstruct  their  rage. 

NOTHING  will  better  counteract  such  designs  than  to  con 
template  the  effects  of  their  success  in  the  government  of 
Buonaparte.  Of  that  in  the  next  number. 


246  EQUALITY. 

EQUALITY.     N°.  VI. 

THE  NATURE  AND  BASIS  OF  BUONAPARTE'S  POWER. 

EVERY  democrat  more  or  less  firmly  believes,  that  a  revo 
lution  is  the  sure  path  to  liberty ;  and,  therefore,  he  believes 
government  of  little  importance  to  the  people,  and  very  often 
the  greatest  impediment  to  their  rights.  Merely  because  the 
French  had  begun  a  revolution,  and  thrown  every  thing  that 
was  government,  flat  to  the  ground,  they  began  to  rejoice, 
because  that  nation  had,  thus-)  become  the  freest  nation  in  the 
world.  It  is  very  probable  many  of  the  ignorant  in  France 
really  thought  so  ;  it  is  lamentable,  that  many  of  the  well  inform 
ed  in  America  fell  into  a  like  errour. 

IT  is  essential,  therefore,  to  review  the  history  of  that  revo 
lution,  at  least  with  so  much  attention,  as  to  deduce  a  few 
plain  conclusions.  Popular  discontents  naturally  lead  to  a  for 
cible  resistance  of  government.  The  very  moment  the  physical 
power  of  the  people  is  thus  employed  to  resist,  the  people 
themselves  become  nothing.  They  can  only  destroy  ;  they 
cannot  rule.  They  cannot  act  without  chiefs  ;  nor  have  chiefs, 
and  keep  rights.  They  are  blind  instruments  in  the  hands  of  am 
bitious  men  ;  and,  of  necessity,  act  merely  as  they  are  acted  upon. 
Each  individual  is  nothing ;  but  the  chief,  having  the  power 
of  a  great  many  to  aid  him,  can  overpower,  and  will  destroy, 
any  mutinous  citizen,  who  presumes  to  find  fault  with  his 
general's  conduct.  Thus  a  revolution  produces  a  mob.  A 
mob  is  at  first  an  irregular,  then  a  regular  army,  but  in  every 
stage  of  its  progress,  the  mere  blind  instrument  of  its  leaders. 
The  power  of  an  army,  of  necessity,  falls  into  the  hands  of  one 
man,  the  general  in  chief,  who  is  the  sole  despot  and  master 
of  the  state. 

EVERY  thing  in  France  has  gone  on  directly  contrary  to  all 
the  silly  expectations  of  the  democrats,  though  most  exactly 
in  conformity  with  the  laws  of  man's  nature,  and  the  evidence 
of  history.  If  this  kind  of  contemplation  could  cure  Ameri 
cans  of  their  strange,  and,  perhaps  it  will  prove <)fatal<>  propen- 


EQUALITY.  247 

sity  to  revolutionary  principles,  and  induce  them,  in  future,  to 
prefer  characters  fitter  to  preserve  order  than  to  overthrow  it, 
then  we  should  grow  wise  by  the  direful  experience  of  others. 
We  might  stop  with  our  Rolands,  without  proceeding  to  our 
Dan  tons  and  Robespieres. 

AFTER  many  convulsions,  we  behold  Buonaparte  the  undis 
puted  master  of  France,  of  new  France^  whose  vast  extent, 
whose  immense  populousness,  whose  warlike  spirit,  and  arro 
gance  in  victory,  invest  her  with  the  means,  as  well  as  the 
claim,  like  old  Rome,  to  parcel  out  kingdoms,  and  to  sit  in 
judgment  upon  nations.  A  nine  years  war  has  left  those 
nations  enfeebled.  They  are  too  much  afraid  of  France  to 
resist  her  singly  ;  and,  unhappily  for  the  repose  and  security 
of  mankind,  too  much  afraid  of  each  other  to  join  in  self- 
defence. 

A  POSITION  of  things  so  tempting  to  ambition  would  awaken 
it  in  France,  even  if  it  ever  slept  there.  But  it  never  sleeps. 
Great  Britain,  though  not  weakened,  is  wearied  and  discourag 
ed  by  the  selfishness  and  discord  of  the  continental  powers, 
and  will  not  resume  her  arms,  unless  compelled  by  absolute 
necessity. 

RUSSIA  alone  is  not  afraid  of  France  ;  but  Russia  has  views 
on  Turkey,  which  she  will  not,  by  any  hostile  measures,  rouse 
France  to  obstruct. 

IN  reality,  the  European  states  are,  by  a  singular  concurrence 
of  circumstances,  more  than  ever  exposed,  at  this  moment,  as 
a  prey  to  the  French ;  and  even  more  exposed  to  their  arts  in 
peace,  than  to  their  arms  in  war.  There  is  little  doubt  that 
the  power  of  the  French  consul  would  prove  irresistible  ;  but 
the  important  doubt  exists,  is  it  stable  ? 

BUONAPARTE  reigns  by  military  power.  There  is  not,  as 
formerly,  a  body  of  nobles,  an  order  of  priests,  a  jealous  parlia 
ment  of  Paris,  a  system  of  wise  municipal  laws,  that  deserved 
respect,  and  of  provincial  customs  and  claims  of  separate 
sovereignty,  that  extorted  it  from  their  kings.  The  new 
monarchy  is  without  any  such  checks!  There  is  no  exterior 
impediment  to  the  power  of  an  army :  its  obstacles  are  to  be 


248  EQUALITY. 

sought  for  within  itself.  And  simple  as  its  machinery  seems 
to  be,  military  force  requires  the  management  of  a  skilful 
hand,  and  it  is  kept  in  order,  by  rightly  touching  many  little 
wheels  and  springs. 

IT  is  indeed  true,  that  discipline  is  the  ruling  principle  of 
armies ;  but  what  is  discipline  more  than  the  fear  of  the 
general  ?  While  they  know  they  have  every  thing  to  suffer 
from  disobedience,  and  nothing  to  hope,  the  troops  will  obey. 
If,  however,  a  state  of  things  should  exist,  that  admitted  of 
much  to  hope  from  mutiny,  and  little  to  dread,  there  is  nothing 
in  the  principle  of  discipline  to  restrain  the  soldiers  from 
revolt  any  more  than  citizens. 

SUPPOSE,  for  instance,  the  great  lieutenant-generals,  especi 
ally  if  they  command  separate  armies,  distant  from  the  general, 
should  conspire  to  place  a  new  commander  at  their  head ;  in 
that  case,  it  is  evident,  the  power  of  discipline  would  be  turn 
ed  against  the  general,  and  converted  into  an  instrument  of 
insurrection.  Every  body  knows,  that  the  troops  would  greatly 
incline  to  the  side  of  their  particular  commander.  As  the 
thirst  for  rank  is  the  very  soul  of  an  army,  the  great  officers 
will  be  hindered  from  aspiring  at  the  chief  command  only  by 
the  difficulty,  and  almost  impossibility,  of  attaining  it — for  as 
to  the  danger,  men  of  daring  spirits,  habituated  to  think  life 
worth  little,  and  honour  worth  every  thing,  will  not  'make 
much  account  of  the  danger. 

To  guard  against  this  mischief,  inherent  in  the  very  life, 
and  bone,  and  muscle  of  his  power,  Buonaparte  must  watch 
his  great  officers  much,  and  trust  them  as  little  as  possible. 
He  must  guard  most  vigilantly  every  avenue,  by  which  a  rival 
might  enter  his  army  to  tamper  with  it :  he  must  be  jealous 
of  every  great  military  genius  in  his  camp,  and  ready  to  meet 
every  unforeseen  event :  he  will  prevent  their  being  collected 
in  great  force  in  the  distant  provinces,  and  under  popular 
lieutenant-generals :  he  will  not  let  the  honour  of  victories  fall 
to  the  share  of  any  commander  but  himself ;  and,  for  that  reason, 
he  will  hurry  to  Marengo,  that  every  body  may  be  forced  to 
ascribe  the  event  to  his  superiour  talents  and  fortune.  While 


EQUALITY.  249 

he  keeps  the  troops  in  dread  of  punishment,  if  they  disobey, 
and  the  odium  of  such  punishments  he  will  throw  on  his  lieu 
tenant-generals,  he  will  spare  nothing,  that  taxes  or  that  exac 
tions  without  any  formality  can  obtain,  to  bestow  in  largesses  on 
his  soldiers.  Thus,  he  will,  be  the  dispenser  of  all  bounties,  and 
unite  in  his  favour  the  sentiments  of  both  fear  and  affection. 
Nobody  will  be  able  to  do  others  so  much  evil,  nor,  before  a 
nation's  wealth  is  at  his  disposal,  can  any  rival  appear  to  be  so 
willing  to  do  them  good,  as  he. 

IT  is  obvious,  however,  that  this  is  a  system  both  of  jealousy 
and  rigour.  It  is  equally  clear,  that,  to  reward  the  soldiers, 
will  be  the  chief  thing  ;  to  spare  the  people  a  very  subordi 
nate  consideration. 

IT  will,  indeed,  for  other  reasons,  be  nearly  impossible, 
under  such  a  government,  greatly  to  favour  the  people.  The 
military  class,  holding  the  chief  power,  will  claim  the  first 
place,  in  point  of  rank  and  honour.  Soldiers  would  grow  weary 
of  their  condition,  if  they  were  despised  by  the  citizens,  whom 
they  are  employed  to  keep  in  subjection.  Besides,  it  would 
not  be  practicable,  nor,  perhaps,  would  it  be  good  policy  in  the 
general,  to  allow  the  state  of  a  citizen  to  be  greatly  preferable 
to  that  of  a  soldier. 

IT  follows,  also,  that  the  inferiour  kind  of  liberty,  which 
many  arbitrary  governments  venture  to  let  their  subjects  enjoy, 
and  which,  prior  to  this  revolution,  all  the  European  stutes 
seemed  desirous  to  enlarge,  will  be  denied  to  the  French.  For 
if  they  pretend  to  be  free,  they  would  soon  corrupt  the  soldiery 
with  their  doctrines  of  equality.  Hence,  it  is,  that  the  liberty 
of  the  press  bus  been  tried  in  France,  and  really  found  to  be 
inconsistent  with  their  plan  of  government.  We  call  it  their 
tyranny,  to  abridge  it ;  the  fact  is,  self-preservation  is  the 
first  law  of  every  government ;  and  the  liberty  to  make  Buo 
naparte  odious,  and  to  combine  all  his  enemies  into  a  regular 
body  against  him,  would  soon  oblige  him  to  draw  the  sword  in 
self-defence.  The  liberty  of  the  press,  under  a  military  govern 
ment,  is,  indeed,  only  the  liberty  to  kindle  a  civil  war. 
32 


250  EQUALITY. 

FOR  the  same  reason,  martial  law  must  be  universal :  the 
government  will  defend  itself;  and  it  cannot  defend  itself, 
unless  it  every  where  watches  its  enemies,  and  hinders  them 
from  acting  as  soon  as  they  begin  to  stir.  Free  governments 
may  consider  many  libels  and  lies  as  idle  words  ;  many  others 
as  worthy  only  of  moderate  fines  ;  but  there  is  no  safety  in  per 
mitting  your  town-meeting  orators  to  tamper  with  an  army. 
The  government  must  be  jealous,  and  is  scarcely  permitted  to 
be  either  magnanimous  or  merciful :  its  fears  will  make  it 
always  strict,  and  often  cruel. 

IT  is  not  possible,  therefore,  that  the  French  should  enjoy 
one  half  of  the  little  liberty  they  had  under  their  kings.  Their 
revolution  will  lessen  it  throughout  Europe.  But  it  is  certain, 
that  the  most  rigorous  governments  are  the  hardest  to  main 
tain  in  tranquillity.  Trivial  risings  of  the  people  are  not  to 
be  expected :  the  certainty,  that  any  small  insurgent  force 
would  be  instantly  crushed  by  the  great  force  of  the  army, 
will  prevent  any  risings,  but  such  as  are  serious  struggles  for 
empire,  and  these  are  to  be  expected. 

A  GREAT  commander,  with  a  hundred  thousand  men  to  se 
cond  his  designs,  is  crowned  with  success.  The  decision  is  made 
by  the  comparison  of  hostile  forces,  and  the  conqueror,  having 
the  greater  force,  claims  the  admiration  of  his  countrymen  and 
despotick  authority  over  them.  He  obtains  it.  But  in  peace 
he  has  fewer  to  aid  his  designs,  and  more  to  obstruct  them. 
Those  whom  he  gratifies  will  not  be  grateful;  those  whom  he 
denies  will  be  vindictive.  Extravagant  hopes  are  formed,  and 
even  great  success  in  a  peaceful  administration  will  not  be 
splendid.  Few  will  admire  ;  many  will  repine  and  be  disap 
pointed. 

THE  circumstance,  that  his  claim  to  reign  is  merely  per 
sonal,  will  ensure  disturbances.  Tranquillity  will  not  be  expect 
ed  to  last  longer  than  his  life,  and  that  expectation  will  abridge 
it.  His  indisposition,  his  old  age,  his  mistakes,  and  his  disas 
ters,  will  all  engender  those  forebodings  of  change,  that  will 
hasten  changes.  His  ambitious  lieutenants  will  aspire  to  his 
place,  and  will  cabal  in  the  army  to  gain  a  party  to  be  ready 


EQUALITY.  251 

to  salute  them  emperours,  as  soon  as  he  is  dead,  or  has  be 
come  odious. 

ANOTHER  consequence  worth  remark,  is,  that  these  changes 
have  no  tendency  to  establish  liberty.  A  new  struggle,  like 
the  old  one,  must  be  by  violence,  which  can  only  give  the 
sceptre  to  the  most  violent.  The  leaders  will  aim  only  at  the 
power  to  reign,  and  it  will  not  be  their  wish  to  lessen  that 
power,  which  they  hope  to  gain  as  a  prize.  The  supreme 
power  would  not  tempt  them  to  such  efforts,  if  it  was  to  be 
made  cheap  and  vile  in  their  eyes,  by  bestowing  it  on  the  des 
pised  rabble  of  the  cities  and  the  common  soldiery.  These 
men  are  unfit  for  liberty  ;  and,  if  they  had  it  gained  for  them, 
would  give  it  away  to  a  demagogue,  who  would  have,  in  six 
weeks,  another  army,  and  a  new  despotism,  as  hard  to  bear 
and  to  overturn  as  that  which  they  had  subverted.  Nor  could 
the  leaders  establish  liberty  if  they  tried  :  the  supreme  power 
being  military,  the  contest  can  only  determine  what  general 
shall  hold  it.  A  military  government,  in  fact,  though  often 
changing  its  chief,  is  capable  of  very  long  duration.  Rome, 
Turkey,  and  Algiers,  are  examples :  France  may  prove  another. 

THUS  the  progress  of  mob  equality  is  invariably  to  despot 
ism,  and  to  a  military  despotism,  which,  by  often  changing  its 
head,  embitters  every  one  of  the  million  of  its  curses,  but 
which  cannot  change  its  nature.  It  renders  liberty  hopeless* 
and  almost  undesirable  to  its  victims. 


[    252    ] 

HISTORY  IS  PHILOSOPHY  TEACHING  BY  EXAMPLE." 

First  piMuhedtn  the  Palladium,  Febmai-y,  1802. 

MONO  states  and  nations  the  law  of  the  powerful  is  des- 
povi.-.m.  Yet  there  are,  perhaps,  of  more  than  two  hundred 
thousand  heads  of  families  in  New-England,  ten  or  twenty 
thousand,  who  sincerely  believe,  that  the  power  of  France  is 
favourable  to  general  liberty  The  opinion  is  shallow,  but  a 
great  many  hundreds  of  the  persons  who  entertain  it  are  no 
fools.  The  erroin*,  gross  as  it  is,  lies  in  want  of  thought,  and 
want  of  information. 

A  NATION,  which  has  made  almost  every  sacrifice  for  its 
ambition  to  rule  other  nations,  will  not,  now  it  is  victorious,  be 
very  modest  in  requiring  from  them  like  sacrifices.  France 
affects  to  be  the  imitator  of  ancient  Rome :  never  was  there 
a  more  abominable  original,  or  a  more  servile  copy. 

T  HERE  vvtcs  Almost  no  evil  that  Rome  did  not  inflict,  scarcely 
any  humiliation  that  she  did  not  impose  on  her  allies.  The 
people  of  Latium  were  denominated  her  conft derates,  and  en 
titled  to  what  was  called,  as  a  kind  of  eminence  in  slavery,  the 
juts  Latinum ;  the  other  states  claimed  only  the  jus  Italicum. 
These  were  degrees  in  slavery.  For  when  the  Latins  insisted, 
as  well  they  might,  tiiat  they  would  not  follow  the  Romans  in 
their  wars,  their  refusal  was  called  treason ;  a  war  ensued,  and 
the  Latins  yielded  on  the  terms  of  having  the  excellent  pri 
vilege  of  the  jus  Latinum.  After  Latium  was  thus  humbled, 
Rome  extended  her  sway  over  the  twelve  states  of  Etruria. 
Those  nearest  to  her,  and  the  most  afraid  of  her  power,  were 
tempted  by  all  the  offers  of  citizenship  that  tyranny  could  hold 
forth ;  and  they  were  offered  with  effect :  they  were  neutral. 
Etruria  did  not  combine  to  resist  Rome,  till  Rome  was  not  to 
be  resisted.  Sammum  was  next  attacked.  Seventy  years  of 
war,  and  more  than  twenty  triumphs,  were  necessary  to  sub 
due  the  Samnites,  who  were  as  brave  arid  as  warlike  as  the  Ro 
mans,  but  not  half  so  well  united.  The  Romans  never  failed 


HTSTORY  TS  PHILOSOPHY.  253 

to  use  one  set  of  slaves  to  conquer  another.  The^  Campanians 
were  called  allies,  and,  under  that  name,  entitled  to  fight  the 
Samnites;  and,  during  a  century  of  the  most  vigorous  oppres 
sion,  they  were  incessantly  reproached  with  their  ingratitude 
to  the  Romans,  because  they  winced  a  little,  when  their  chains 
galled  to  their  marrow.  The  Samnites  were  reduced ;  and 
then  Pyrrhus  came.  The  people  of  Tarentum,  who  called 
him  over,  had  little  power,  and  his  own  state  had  none,  for  a 
distant  expedition.  He  failed.  The  Carthaginians  next  dis 
puted  the  dominion  of  Sicily  with  the  Romans.  They  loved 
money  better  than  glory ;  and  the  Romans  sought  money  by 
winning  glory.  The  men  of  the  sword  prevailed  in  combat 
against  the  shopkeepers. 

Two  extraordinary  men  raised  up  Carthage  from  the  dust. 
Hamilcar,  a  great  man,  reduced  Spain,  where  he  was  cut  off  in 
early  life :  Hannibal,  his  son,  a  greater  man,  perhaps  the  greatest 
of  men,  trained  the  armies  and  led  them  into  Italy  against  the 
Romans.  Much  has  been  said,  and  more  might  be  said,  on 
this  subject.  Hannibal  never  met  with  his  equal,  and  the  rea 
son  why  he  did  not  finally  conquer  was,  that  the  institutions  of 
Carthage  were  inferiour  to  those  of  Rome.  The  policy  of  Car 
thage  was  to  make  money  ;  that  of  Rome  to  make  conquests. 
In  consequence  of  this  defect,  Carthage  lost  both  money  and 
conquests ;  while  Rome  accumulated  both.  Carthage  stood 
in  fear  of  her  allies ;  the  allies  of  Rome  were  afrdd  of  her. 
The  conquests  of  Rcrne  were  old  and  well  consolidated  with 
her  empire  ;  those  of  Carthage  recent  and  still  turbulent. 
Accordingly,  Spain,  as  soon  as  Hunnibul  left  it,  blazed  out 
with  wars,  that  made  her  the  slave  of  Rome.  Italy  was  more 
advanced  in  slavery,  and  felt  an  emulation  among  her  states  in 
their  obedience  to  their  mistress.  She  used  her  own  allies  as 
slaves,  and  the  subjects  of  Carthage  as  allies. 

ROME  courted  the  great ;  Hunr.ibal  the  populace.  This  was 
one  CcOise  of  the  ardour  and  perseverance  of  the  allies  in  the 
service  of  Rome,  who  courted  the  oligarchy  of  every  state  to 
assist  in  oppressing  it.  Anotlicr  impediment  to  Hannibal's 
success,  was  in  the  government  of  Carthage.  It  was  popular, 


254  HISTORY  IS  PHILOSOPHY. 

and,  therefore,  a  prey  to  faction.  Hanno  prevented  the  sup 
plies  being  sent  to  Hannibal,  that  would  have  given  him  the 
superiority.  The  jacobins  of  Carthage  destroyed  her  indepen 
dence  :  they  hated  their  rivals  more  than  they  loved  their 
country. 

THE  Romans  dissembled  their  anger  against  Philip,  king  of 
Macedon,  as  long  as  they  had  the  Carthaginians  to  deal  with. 
When  Carthage  was  subdued,  they  picked  a  quarrel  with 
Philip.  Even  then  they  allied  themselves  with  the  JfrtoHtins, 
the  Virginians  of  ancient  Greece,  and  used  them  as  tools  to 
subdue  Philip.  Philip  was  beaten  at  Cynocephale,  and  the 
^Etolians  were  greatly  disappointed  on  the  peace  that  ensued. 
For  they  expected  that  Rome  would  allow  them  to  domineer 
as  despots  in  Greece ;  but  Rome  very  discreetly  chose  to  do 
mineer  herself. 

INDEED,  ancient  history  has  a  great  deal  to  say  to  America  ; 
but  America  will  not  hear  it. 

THE  j£tolians,  disappointed  in  their  ambition,  then  said  a 
great  many  things  that  were  true  ;  but  they  said  all  from  spite, 
and  were  not  regarded.  Flamininus,  the  conqueror  of  Philip, 
proclaimed,  at  the  Isthmian  games,  liberty  to  the  states  of 
Greece  ;  that  is  to  say,  anarchy ;  that  all  should  be  weak,  and 
Rome  stronger  than  all. 

HE,  and  the  ten  ambassadours,  told  the  Roman  senate,  that, 
unless  Lacedsemon  were  reduced,  Nabis,  the  king  of  that  state, 
would  be  lord  of  all  Greece ;  and  yet  he  told  the  assembled 
states  of  Greece,  at  Corinth,  that  it  was  wholly  their  affair  and 
nothing  to  the  Romans.  The  duplicity  and  profligacy  of  this 
transaction  are  exhibited  even  by  Livy,  who  is  a  very  Roman 
in  his  history. 

BY  dividing,  the  Romans  conquered.  Weak  confederacies 
are  so  many  strong  factions  and  crazy  governments. 

THESE  old  examples  shew  what  France  has  already  done  in 
Europe,  where  she  has  destroyed  every  one  of  its  republicks ; 
and  what  she  will  do,  if  she  and  her  allies,  the  jacobins,  can, 
in  America.  They  have  begun  their  work — they  have  made 
progress. 


[    255    ] 

. 

BALANCE  OF  EUROPE. 

First  publisfied  in  tJtc  PallcuKuin,  March,  1802. 

L  WO  hundred  and  eighty  years  ago,  Francis  I.  king  of 
France,  and  Charles  V.  emperour  of  Germany,  king  of  Spain, 
possessor  of  the  dominions  of  the  house  of  Austria  in  Ger 
many,  Italy,  and  the  Low  Countries,  began  the  contests  of 
ambition,  which  have  since  regulated  the  balance  of  Etirofie. 

RUSSIA  and  Prussia  were  then  nothing ;  England  was  not 
much,  for  we  are  to  deduct  from  its  present  power  Scotland, 
which  was  hostile,  Ireland,  little  better  civilized  than  the  six 
nations,  and  the  American  colonies  and  India  settlements, 
neither  of  which  were  then  begun.  England  then  had  the 
weight  of  a  feather,  but  of  a  feather  that  could  turn  the  scale 
Henry  VIII.  had  not  always  the  good  sense,  to  throw  his 
weight  into  the  right  scale  :  he  acted  from  passion,  rather 
than  from  policy.  France  was  greatly  overmatched,  and 
should  have  had  his  aid.  Afterwards  the  troubles  in  France 
reduced  that  country  to  a  state  of  insignificance,  and  Philip 
II.  king  of  Spain,  remained  the  preponderant  power  of 
Europe.  After  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  Louis 
XIV  advanced  to  the  front  rank,  as  the  leader  of  the  Euro 
pean  republick.  Charles  II.  of  England  loved  his  pleasures 
too  much,  and  trusted  his  parliament  too  little,  to  dispute  that 
rank  with  him.  Accordingly,  Louis  made  great  conquests, 
and  annexed  Alsace,  Lorrain,  and  a  part  of  the  Low  Countries 
to  his  vast  monarchy. 

AT  that  time,  there  were  only  three  powers  in  the  north  of 
Europe,  Denmark,  Sweden,  and  Poland.  Sweden,  especially, 
was  highly  military,  and  the  size  of  her  army  made  amends 
for  the  scantiness  of  her  wealth  and  people.  Russia  was  not 
born,  and  Prussia  was  not  then  gathered  as  a  nation.  Eng 
land,  Holland,  and  Austria  formed  a  balance  in  the  beginning 
of  the  eighteenth  century  for  the  immense  power  of  France. 


256  BALANCE  OF  POWER. 

Spain  was  then  nothing  ;  for  an  Austrian  and  a  Bourbon  prince 
were  competitors  for  its  crown. 

SOMETHING  like  a  balance  was,  however,  actually  main 
tained  :  for  at  all  times,  the  ambition  to  establish  a  universal 
monarchy  existed  ;  but,  by  great  good  fortune,  sufficient  obsta 
cles  to  its  accomplishment  also  existed.  These  were  found  in 
the  combination  of  the  weaker  powers. 

ONE  reason  for  the  success  for  this  combination,  may  be  as 
cribed  to  the  inferiour  military  establishments  of  the  several 
European  states,  at  that  period.  A  great  power  found  it  very 
difficult  to  maintain  a  great  army  ;  and  a  small  state  with  a 
large  army,  and,  especially,  aided  by  a  confederacy  with  other 
weak  states,  §couid  effectually  resist  a  great  conqueror. 

HENCE,  we  may  observe  the  great  change  in  the  face  of 
Europe  within  a  century.  Armies  are  large,  and  more  in  pro 
portion  to  the  size  of  the  several  states.  New  combinations  of 
politicks  are  formed,  in  consequence  of  the  gradual  and  expe 
rienced  insignificance  of  the  weak  states.  New  powers,  as 
Russia  and  Prussia,  have  arisen ;  and  the  independence  of  all 
requires,  that  new  principles  should  be  adopted  to  support  the 
balance,  without  which  one  nation  will  be  the  tyrant,  and  the 
rest  slaves. 

BY  the  treaty  of  Westphalia,  in  1648,  Germany  was  con 
demned  to  endless  anarchy.  Its  state  sovereignties  were 
scarcely  to  be  counted  or  controlled. 

WHATEVER  is  divided,  is  weakened ;  and,  in  politicks, 
whatever  is  weakened,  is  exposed  as  a  prey.  Accordingly,  in 
every  war,  Germany  furnished  soldiers  for  France,  and  her 
own  sons  were  employed  to  cut  one  another's  throats. 

HOLLAND  had  some  patriotism,  one  hundred  years  ago  i 
faction  has  since  extinguished  it ;  and,  instead  of  its  being 
the  enemy,  it  proved  in  1794,  the  auxiliary  of  French  domi 
nation. 

IN  weak  .states,  fear  rules  :  temporary  expedients  are 
sought,  and  the  rulers  seldom  f«il  in  the  end  to  act  for  their 
destroyers,  because  they  are  afraid  to  act  against  them.  Hence 
it  is,  that  the  weak  states  of  Europe  have  lately  proved  more 


BALANCE  OF  POWER.  257 

than  passive  to  France  :  they  have  made  a  merit  of  devoting 
themselves  to  destruction. 

IN  the  present  position  of  Europe,  it  is  obvious,  that  France 
domineers.  She  has  gained  positively,  by  adding  territory  to 
her  dominions  equal  in  size,  wealth,  and  people  to  a  second- 
rate  kingdom  ;  she  has  gained  relatively,  by  removing  Austria 
to  a  distance,  and  by  weakening  that  ancient  rival  to  such  a 
degree,  as  to  secure  her  inaction  for  an  age. 

PRUSSIA  has  gained  prodigiously  by  the  partition  of  Poland. 
It  was  natural  to  think,  that  Prussia  had  become  powerful 
enough  to  disregard  France  ;  but  it  has  unexpectedly  happen 
ed,  that  Prussia  has  gained  power  without  gaining  entire  inde 
pendence.  Austria  is  weaker ;  but  France  is  stronger  than 
ever.  Besides,  Russia  is,  more  than  ever,  the  preponderating 
power  of  the  North.  Of  course  it  is,  that  Prussia  still  leans 
upon  France,  is  more  than  ever  afraid  to  provoke  her  dis 
pleasure,  and,  perhaps,  more  than  ever  really  interested  in  her 
alliance,  to  secure  herself  against  Russia. 

FRANCE,  then,  finds  no  counterpoise  in  Prussia.  Sweden 
and  Denmark  are  no  longer  of  any  consequence.  Their  ar 
mies  no  longer  bear  any  proportion  to  their  extent  of  territory, 
and  other  powers  have  augmented  their  forces  in  proportion  to 
their  number  of  subjects.  Denmark  and  Sweden  have,  of 
course,  declined,  both  positively  and  relatively.  Poland  is  an 
nihilated  as  an  independent  power.  Prussia,  instead  of  bal 
ancing  the  power  of  France,  is  her  ally,  nearly  as  Latium  was 
the  ally  of  Rome. 

RUSSIA  is  a  colossus,  but,  with  one  foot  on  the  Frozen 
ocean,  and  the  other  on  the  Black  sea,  she  cannot  reach  her 
antagonist  in  the  south  of  Europe. 

No  foe  is  near  enough,  or  powerful  enough  to  save  Europe 
from  subjection,  but  Great  Britain.  Every  independent  power 
has,  therefore,  a  manifest  interest  in  the  sufficiency  of  the 
British  force  to  balance  that  of  France. 

IT  will  be  objected,  that  Britain  has  vastly  grown  in  her  na 
val  strength  ;  that  if  France  domineers  on  the  land,  Great- 
Britain  is  the  despot  of  the  ocean.    Why,  therefore,  it  will  be 
33 


258  BALANCE  OF  POWER, 

asked  by  the  democrats,  shall  we  view  the  aggrandizement  of 
France  with  terrour,  when  her  enemy  is  no  less  formidable, 
and  much  more  in  our  way,  sometimes  as  a  competitor,  often 
as  a  tyrant  ? 

THE  answer  is,  that  the  modern  balance  of  power  in  Europe 
is  only  of  the  great  powers  :  the  minor  powers  are  no  more* 
Switzerland,  the  Italian  princes  and  states,  Holland,  even 
Spain,  and  the  Baltick  states,  excepting  Russia,  are  annihila 
ted.  Either  there  can  be  no  balance,  or  it  must  be  formed 
by  the  counterpoise  of  great  states.  When,  therefore,  France 
has  grown  to  such  a  giant  size,  no  dwarf  can  be  her  antago 
nist.  The  prodigious  increase  of  the  British  navy  is  some 
counterpoise,  but,  we  fear,  a  very  insufficient  one,  for  the  tre 
mendous  means  and  still  more  formidable  spirit  of  France. 

IT  is  allowed,  that  the  British  navy,  considered  in  an  ab 
stract  point,  is  too  large  and  too  superiour  to  that  of  all  other 
nations,  especially  of  our  own.  But  naval  power,  it  may  be 
said,  is  rather  less  fitted  for  the  purposes  of  national  aggran 
dizement,  than  any  other.  It  is  very  likely  to  provoke  ene 
mies,  and  not  well  adapted  to  subdue  them.  It  is  a  glittering- 
defensive  armour.  And,  surely,  all  independent  nations  ought 
to  rejoice,  that  Great  Britain  wears  it.  Great  as  its  energy  is, 
it  is  not  too  great  to  defend  her  from  her  adversary.  If  it  be 
an  evil,  for  that  navy  to  be  so  great,  it  is  clearly  a  less  evil, 
than  for  the  French  power  to  be  freed  from  its  resistance. 
Remove  that  resistance,  and  France  would  rule  the  civilized 
world. 

TURKEY  was  formerly  a  great  power,  and  a  check  on  Aus 
tria  and  Russia.  But  as  France  finds  Turkey  too  weak  for 
that  purpose  ;  as  she  finds,  that  the  fall  of  her  old  ally  is  not 
to  be  prevented,  her  policy  will  be  to  profit  by  her  fall. 

WE  have  seen  the  eagerness  of  Buonaparte  to  possess 
himself  of  Egypt ;  and,  had  it  not  been  for  sir  Sidney  Smith, 
perhaps  he  would  have  conquered  Syria,  and  marched  to  Con 
stantinople.  As  long  as  France  remains  inferiour  at  sea,  she 
•will  desire  to  use  the  Turkish  dominions,  as  a  station  to  con- 


BALANCE  OP  POWER.  259 

fine  the  Russians  to  the  Black  sea,  and  to  collect  the  troops 
and  resources  to  annoy  the  English  empire  in  India.  France, 
moreover,  will  desire  to  seize  a  part  of  Turkey,  at  least  Candia, 
because,  if  she  does  not,  Russia  will.  Turkey  cannot  be  long 
hindered  from  falling,  and  cannot  fall,  without  producing  a 
scramble  for  her  spoils. 

IT  is  hence,  on  the  review  of  European  affairs,  obvious  to 
remark,  that  all  the  states  have  become  military  in  some  pro 
portion  to  their  wealth  and  populousness.  Hence,  the  weak 
states,  that  were  of  consequence  one  hundred  years  ago,  have 
sunk  into  insignificance,  since  the  great  powers  have  armed 
and  taken  their  natural  superiority.  Hence,  also,  it  is  apparent, 
that  nothing  but  military  strength  is  any  security  for  national 
independence;  as  all  the  weak  states  have  become  abject,  weak, 
and  despised.  It  is,  also,  evident,  that  the  great  powers  have 
grown  in  strength,  and  that  France  has  outgrown  them  all. 
Great  Britain  has,  indeed,  increased  in  commerce  and  wealth  ; 
and  France  has  declined  in  both ;  but  France  has  despised  all 
occupation  but  that  of  the  sword :  she  has  destroyed  her  artisans 
and  multiplied  her  soldiers.  This  has  ensured  her  poverty,  and 
her  conquests  :  it  has  filled  her  army,  and  emptied  her  work 
shops.  England,  on  the  contrary,  has  found  her  prosperity  an 
impediment  to  her  warlike  operations.  A  man's  labour  is  worth 
much  in  England,  and  it  is  expensive  to  use  it  in  the  field  of 
war  ;  it  is  of  use  to  France  only  in  that  field. 

IT  takes  England,  therefore,  a  long  period  to  put  on  her 
armour ;  and  it  is  worn  with  infinite  expense.  But,  after  it  is 
adjusted  to  her  limbs,  she  is  capable  of  vast  energy,  because 
she  gradually  adopts  a  war  system,  and  accommodates  her 
industry  to  her  situation.  The  war,  at  length,  creates  its  own 
resources ;  and  industry,  that  is  ever  found,  when  pressed  by 
necessity,  capable  of  working  miracles,  is  sure  to  display  them 
in  furnishing  the  resources.  Accordingly,  we  conclude,  that 
the  peace,  by  disarming  England,  exposes  her  to  a  danger  and 
disadvantage  infinitely  beyond  what  she  had  to  apprehend  from 
the  continuance  of  the  war. 


260  BALANCE  OF  POWER. 

FRANCE  experiences  no  such  disadvantage.  She  will  not 
let  her  troops  be  idle.  If  Toussaint  should  not  find  employ 
ment  for  them,  she  will  send  them  to  Louisiana  :  she  will  find 
work  or  make  it. 

BUT  England  has  increased  too  in  military  strength  and 
spirit.  Our  democrats  arc  silly  enough  to  think  that  nation 
subject  to  a  standing  army ;  the  truth  is,  a  rnilitia,  an  effective 
militia  of  the  real  people,  constitutes  the  force  of  Great  Britain : 
it  is  the  nation  that  holds  the  sword. 

ADD  to  this,  the  vast  increase  of  the  British  power  in  India. 
On  the  whole,  we  may  hope,  that  Great  Britain  will  be  able 
to  maintain  the  post  of  glory  and  danger,  in  which  she  is 
placed.  She  cannot  defend  herself,  without  making  other  na 
tions  secure  ;  nor  is  it  possible,  that  her  fall  should  happen, 
without  infinite  peril,  perhaps  utter  ruin,  to  the  independence 
of  all  other  powers.  France  was,  formerly,  emulous  of  com 
mercial  greatness ;  but  the  spirit,  that  Colbert  awakened,  and 
that  seemed  to  balance  the  spirit  of  chivalry  of  the  nation,  is 
apparently  quenched.  France  is  more  military  and  less  com 
mercial,  than  ever  she  was  before ;  England,  on  the  contrary, 
is  more  than  ever  commercial.  The  basis  of  her  naval  su 
periority  is  widened.  Hence  we  may  infer,  that  Britain  will 
continue  to  beat  France  at  sea. 

THIS  review,  also,  serves  to  exhibit,  in  a  proper  light,  the 
policy,  if  it  be  Jiolicy^  of  disarming  the  United  States  at  a  time 
of  unprecedented  danger.  While  all  Europe  is  sliding  from 
its  old  foundations  ;  while  France  is  pouring  myriads  of  black, 
white,  and  ring-streaked  banditti  into  St.  Domingo,  and  is 
ready  to  vomit  them  on  our  shores,  we  are  boastfully  consign 
ing  our  little  army  to  nothing,  and  our  navy  to  the  worms. 

IT  is  in  peace  only  that  armies  can  be  trained  ;  it  is  in  peace 
only  that  navies  can  be  prepared,  and  a  very  long  preparation 
is  requisite.  We  have  abolished  revenue  enough,  that  no  fwor 
man  felly  the  collection  of  which  sent  no  son  of  laborious  fwverty 
tiujijierlcss  to  btd,  to  build  a  fleet  sufficient  for  our  protection. 
Coaches,  loaf  sugar,  and  whiskey,  are  to  go  free,  and  our  com 
merce  to  wear  shackles  I  Nothing  is  easier  than  for  the  United 


BALANCE  OP  POWER.  261 

States  to  provide  thirty  ships  of  the  line  and  sixty  frigates. 
Such  a  force  would  protect  our  rights ;  and  for  want  of  it, 
France  alone  has  plundered  us  of  more  than  such  a  fleet  would 
have  cost  to  build,  and  eciuip,  and  maintain  during  the  late  war. 

IT  is  childish  prattle,  to  inquire,  what  need  have  we  of  force  ? 
A  nation  that  neglects  its  naval  and  military  power,  will  not 
preserve  its  independence :  weakness  is  subjugation.  Si  -vis 
pacem,  para  helium,  is  a  maxim  of  good  sense,  but  not  of  the 
democrats.  To  be  without  force  or  treasure,  used  to  be  deemed 
the  course  for  a  government  to  be  without  consideration ;  but, 
of  late,  it  is  deemed  to  be,  though  an  evil,  yet  a  less  evil  than 
another,  that  those,  who  are  dismantling  our  government,  like 
an  old  ship,  that  is  to  be  broken  up  for  the  old  iron,  should  be 
without  popularity. 

How  long  shall  men,  whose  views  are  merely  party  or  per 
sonal,  whose  foresight  scarcely  reaches  a  week  forward,  be 
encouraged  by  our  suffrages  to  work  for  our  undoing  !  A  system 
so  selfish  and  so  mean,  that  begins  and  ends  with  the  indivi 
dual  interests  of  those  who  act  for  us,  is  too  gross  to  be  mis 
understood,  and  too  mischievous  long  to  be  tolerated.  It  ap 
pears  probable,  that  the  PEOPLE  will  clearly  discern  how  they 
ought  to  vote,  two  years  before  they  will  have  the  opportunity. 
Federal  truth  has  begun  its  awful  progress,  and  it  will  prevail : 
its  sun  has  set  to  rise  again. 


C    262    ] 

POLITICAL  REVIEW. 

N°.  I. 

J-'irst  published  in  the  Palladium,  October,  1802. 


TH 


'.  E  war  of  arms  is  at  an  end ;  the  war  of  the  custom-house 
is  commenced  between  France  and  England.  More  than  ever 
their  policy  relates  to  the  concerns  of  other  powers  ;  and  the 
consequences  of  their  competition  will  shew,  that  the  same  act, 
which  has  given  peace  to  themselves,  has  scattered  the  seeds 
of  discord  among  their  neighbours.  To  lessen  the  commerce, 
of  England,  will  lessen  her  power.  Buonaparte  will,  therefore, 
try  all  the  means  that  his  policy  can  employ,  to  make  his  rival 
defenceless,  before  he  forces  her  to  be  hostile. 

IT  is  not  clear,  that  the  people  of  England  were  willing  any 
longer  to  prosecute  the  war  ;  but  it  is  now  unquestionably  clear, 
that  it  was  their  great  ultimate  interest  to  pursue  it.  Peace 
has  brought  with  it  no  new  resources  ;  it  has  dried  up  those 
which  spring  up  with  a  state  of  war  :  for  war  makes  many  of 
its  own  means.  Peace  divides  the  commerce,  that  war  gave 
to  her  entire  :  her  enemies,  who  lately  did  not  own  a  ship,  are 
now  England's  competitors.  Their  business  was  to  destroy  ; 
now  it  is  to  produce  and  to  fabricate.  They  want  less  ;  they 
supply  more.  They  diminish  her  means ;  and  they  recruit 
their  own.  England  looks  at  the  peace  with  mingled  shame 
and  dread ;  shame,  because  she  is  already  degraded  in  the  eyes 
of  strangers,  if  not  in  her  own ;  with  dread,  for  France  has 
gained  new  power,  and  shews  her  old  ambition. 

IT  is  childish  to  say,  that  Mr.  Pitt  ought  to  have  proceeded 
with  the  war,  if  he  understood  the  position  of  things.  He 
understood  it ;  but  it  is  alleged,  and,  perhaps,  it  is  true,  that 
the  British  nation  preferred  present  ease,  which  they  expected, 
and  have  failed  of  realizing,  by  peace,  to  the  glory,  the  burdens 
and  the  distant  ultimate  security  of  war.  We  Americans 
choose  to  say,  and  we  are  vain-glorious  enough  to  believe,  that 


POLITICAL  REVIEW.  263 

the  people  are  not  counted  for  any  thing  any  where,  except  in 
America.  The  truth  is,  the  voice  of  the  nation,  when  it  con 
veys  its  wisdom  or  its  deliberate  mistakes,  is  more  sure  to  pene 
trate  audibly,  and  with  effect,  the  recesses  of  St.  James's,  than 
those  of  Monticello.  The  British  nation  was  weary  of  the  war, 
aad,  therefore,  it  was  ended.  Peace  will  present  an  aspect  of 
danger,  which  its  courage  will  not  be  summoned  to  face. 
The  only  question  is,  whether,  on  viewing  its  formidable  con 
sequences,  its  policy  will  be  able  to  surmount  or  elude  them. 
A  nice  problem  it  is.  America  is  infinitely  interested  in  its 
favourable  solution. 

WHEN  we  behold  France  with  a  power  so  vast,  as  to  excite 
and  enable  her  to  undertake  almost  every  thing,  and  a  spirit 
still  more  romantick  and  vast,  to  prompt  her  to  achieve  impos 
sibilities,  we  are  led  to  think  of  a  new  Roman  empire,  under 
which  the  civilized  world  is  first  to  bleed,  and  then  to  sweat  in 
Chains.  We  again  see  Rome,  after  the  first  Punick  war  ;  and, 
alas  !  we  see  Europe  without  a  Hannibal,  unless  we  look  for 
him  in  England's  Nelson  or  Smith.  The  little  states  are 
nothing  ;  they  are  slaves,  paid  by  titles  to  freedom  for  hewing 
wood  and  drawing  water.  The  king  of  Prussia,  though  power 
ful,  is  no  Philip  ;  he  is  only  an  Attalus  or  Eumenes,  under 
France.  Spain  has  nothing  of  an  independent  monarchy,  but 
the  name.  As  to  Holland,  Switzerland,  and  the  Cisalpine  or 
Italian  republicks,  they  are  republicks  during  pleasure ;  they 
are  sovereign,  as  Deiotarus,  or  Ariarathes,  or  Prusias  were,  to 
tame  them  for  subjection.  They  are  new  recruits  for  the 
French  republick,  committed  first  to  the  drill-serjeant,  before 
they  are  turned  into  the  ranks.  They  will  be  cudgelled,  if  they 
prove  refractory.  They  will  be  made  to  obey,  like  slaves,  and 
yet  to  say  and  to  swear,  on  occasion,  that  they  are  sovereign 
and  independent,  as  may  best  suit  the  ambitious  policy  of 
France.  Old  Rome  was  too  cautious  and  too  much  in  earnest 
in  her  plan,  to  make  a  conquered  people  her  subjects  at  once. 
She  gave  them  a  king,  or  made  a  pretty,  little,  snug  indepen 
dent  republick  for  them,  till  every  man  was  dead  and  gone, 
who  was  born  and  educated  in  independence  ;  her  bitter  drugs 


264  POLITICAL  REVIEW. 

were  all  given  in  honey.  So  it  is  with  France.  Europe  has 
no  longer  any  minor  powers  ;  they  are  swallowed  up  by  France. 
Her  establishment  in  Louisiana,  which,  though  certain,  is 
delayed  only  to  choose  the  moment,  when  it  will  be  most  fatal 
to  us,  will  convince  even  America,  that  distance  is  no  protec 
tion  :  the  plagues  of  Egypt  will  be  in  our  bosoms,  and  in  our 
porridge -pots.  Our  pity  or  our  folly  has  made  us  weep  or 
wonder  at  the  events  of  Europe.  We  have/  had  our  spasms, 
when  we  saw  distress  and  disease  abroad  ;  we  are  doomed  by- 
fate  to  scratch  with  a  mortal  leprosy  of  our  own  :  Gehazi,  by 
accepting  bribes,  is  smitten  with  Naaman's  pestilence.  Our 
government  has  little  force,  and,  since  the  deplorable  fourth 
of  March,  1801,  less  than  ever,  to  defend  Kentucky  and  Ten 
nessee  from  the  arms  of  France  :  soon  or  late  they  will  fall  vic 
tims  to  their  arts.  In  spirit  and  policy  we  are  Dutchmen : 
we  are  to  lose  our  honour  and  our  safety  ;  and  the  economical 
statesmen,  whom  the  wrath  of  heaven  has  placed  at  our  head, 
will  inquire  what  are  they  worth  in  shillings.  Every  penny  of 
their  folly  will  cost  a  pound. 

BUT,  say  Job's  comforters,  France  is  a  republick,  and,  of 
course,  a  sister  republick  will  not  only  find  friendship,  but  secu 
rity,  in  the  aggrandizement  of  France.  Miserable  comforters 
are  all  these  !  Before  this  boasted  revolution,  Europe  had  many 
free  republicks.  Alas  !  they  are  no  more.  France,  proclaim 
ing  war  against  palaces,  has  waged  it  against  commonwealths. 
Switzerland,  Holland,  Geneva,  Venice,  Lucca,  Genoa  are  gone, 
and  ythe  wretched  Batavian,  Helvetian,  and  Italian  republicks, 
are  but  the  faint  images,  the  spectres,  that  haunt  the  sepulchres, 
where  they  rot.  So  far  has  France  been  from  paying  exclu 
sive  regard  to  republicks,  that  she  has  considered  them,  not 
as  associates,  but  as  victims.  Venice  she  sold  to  the  emperour. 
Holland  she  taxed  openly  for  her  own  wants,  till  she  drove 
her  rich  men  into  banishment.  She  "  ransomed  Dutch  liberty," 
with  a  vengeance,  "  from  the  hands  of  the  opulent :" — so  far 
she  took  counsel  from  the  Worcester  Farmer  ;  or  he  from  her 
admired  example.  From  Switzerland  she  drained  her  youth 
to  be  food  for  gun-powder.  This  is  not  all.  But  the  king  of 


POLITICAL  REVIEW.  265 

Etruria  is  tricked  out  in  purple  robes,  like  a  playhouse 
monarch,  to  treud  the  stage  in  mock  dignity.  The  proud 
Spaniard  finds  for  France  gold  and  dollars,  and  for  that  proof 
of  "  civism"  he  is  treated  as  headservant  in  Buonaparte's 
kitchen.  So  that  to  favour  kings,  and  to  depress,  plunder,  and 
destroy  republicks,  has  been  the  sure  and  experienced  conse 
quence  of  French  domination. 

LET  the  ignorant  hirelings  of  France  prattle  about  the  cause 
of  liberty.  Let  them  repeat  the  second  million  of  times  the 
silly  lie,  that  we  triumph  with  France.  Her  triumphs  are 
terrible.  A  voice  seems  to  issue  from  the  tombs  of  the  fallen 
republicks  for  our  warning.  Our  citizens  are  warned,  though 
our  government  is  not ;  and  they  would  be  armed,  if  France  or 
fate  did  not  ordain,  that  we  should  be  disarmed  and  defenceless. 


POLITICAL  REVIEW.     N°.  II. 

ONE  of  the  consequences  of  the  progress  of  ancient  Rome 
to  empire  was,  to  lower  the  spirit  of  ail  other  nations,  while 
she  raised  her  own.  Already  Buonaparte  talks  in  the  tone  of 
a  master ;  and  his  rivals  and  enemies,  like  slaves.  The  em- 
perour  of  Germany  has  congratulated  him  in  form,  because  he 
has  elected  himself  president  of  the  Italian  republick.  The 
grand  Turk  has  renewed  his  old  treaties  with  the  man,  whose 
expedition  to  Egypt,  in  a  time  of  profound  peace,  shewed  his 
absolute  contempt  of  their  obligation.  Russia  smothers  her 
anger  on  account  of  Malta  and  Corfu.  All  Europe  is  striving 
to  make  its  hypocrisy  conceal  its  terrour. 

AFTER  every  former  war,  the  question  in  every  state  was, 
how  to  arrange  its  concerns  so  as  best  to  profit  by  the  mutual 
dread,  in  which  every  power  stood  of  its  neighbour.  Since 
the  treaty  of  Amiens,  the  little  powers  are  extinct,  and  the 
only  concern  is,  how  to  find  defence  against  France  :  there  is 
but  one  leviathan,  and  half  a  score  of  small  fish. 

BUT,  as  France  emulates  old  Rome,  it  is  material  to  note 
the  points  of  difference  and  resemblance. 
34 


J66  POLITICAL  REVIEW. 

ROMP:  achieved  her  conquests,  while  she  was  republican ; 
France  is  now  imfierial,  precisely  in  the  state,  in  which  Rome 
became  pacifick  and  began  to  feel  decline. 

FRANCE  is  as  corrupt,  and  has  had  as  much  to  corrupt  her, 
as  Rome  had,  after  the  horrours  of  her  civil  wars.  Yet  it  is 
probable  Buonaparte  is  less  of  a  politician  and  more  of  a  war- 
riour,  than  Augustus,  the  second  Roman  Cesar.  The  Roman, 
too,  had  no  foe  near  him.  Parthia  lay  beyond  the  Euphrates  ; 
and  a  desart  of  parching  -sand,  without  fountains  of  water, 
divided  the  two  great  empires  of  Rome  and  Parthia  from  each 
other.  Wars,  when  they  were  waged,  were,  therefore,  pro 
duced  by  vain-glory,  and  very  little  interested  the  passions  of 
the  people  of  either  of  these  states.  In  order  to  make  the 
comparison  fairly,  we  must  suppose  that  Cornelius  Sylla,  in 
stead  of  abdicating  the  dictatorship,  remained  at  the  head  of 
the  Roman  armies,  the  Buonaparte  of  Rome.  Even  then,  we 
shall  scarcely  find  a  formidable  enemy  left.  Gaul  and  Britain 
were  barbarous  ;  Carthage,  Greece,  Macedonia,  and  the  Syri 
an  monarchy  under  Antiochus,  were  reduced  to  subjection. 
Whereas  the  modern  Sylla  finds  in  England,  Austria,  and 
Russia,  a  Hannibal,  a  Philip,  and  a  Mithridates. 

FRANCE,  then,  as  military  as  Rome  was  under  the  Cesars, 
finds,  in  these  obstacles,  infinitely  greater  ^incentives  to  her 
ambition  than  they  did.  She  has  enemies  near,  and  in  force. 
Of  necessary  consequence,  her  system  will  not  be  pacifick  : 
to  make  the  power  of  her  enemies  less,  will  be  the  same  thing 
as  to  make  her  own  greater.  The  power  of  England,  depend 
ing  'on  her  navy,  will  necessarily  engage  her  active  hostility. 
She  will  try  the  utmost  efforts  of  her  policy  and  "  diplomatick 
skill,"  to  detach  the  United  States  from  being  customers  of 
Great  Britain;  and  will,  if  possible,  unite  them  to  herself, 
as  auxiliaries  to  her  scheme  of  aggrandizement.  We  have 
some  thousands  of  jacobins  wicked  enough,  and  some  tens  of 
thousands  of  democrats  weak  enough,  to  second  her  plan. 
They  are  ready  to  make  the  United  States  the  tool  of  France, 
and,  in  that  illustrious  character,  to  revive  the  famous  resolu 
tions  of  Mr.  Madison,  and  the  report  of  Mr.  Jefferson  on  the 


POLITICAL  REVIEW.  '267 

privileges  and  restrictions  of  our  commerce  with  foreign  na 
tions,  so  as  to  render  congress  the  instrument  of  their  war 
upon  Sheffield,  Manchester,  and  Birmingham,  in  England. 
Mr.  Madison,  who  knew  a  great  deal  less  than  nothing  at  all 
of  his  subject,  fancied  that  we  could  starve  these  manufactur 
ers  ;  and  because  we  could)  he  humanely  and  wisely  insisted, 
that  we  ought  to  starve  them  ;  and,  therefore,  that  we  ought  to 
frame  regulations,  by  which  our  consumers  and  the  English 
manufacturers  would  both  suffer,  and  the  French  would  gain. 
All  this,  so  worthy  of  a  Frenchman,  was  to  be  done  to  restore 
to  trade  its  liberty  :  it  was  to  suffer  force,  in  order  to  be  free. 
It  was  to  be  compelled  to  do,  as  it  ought  to  be  disposed,  but 
was  not  disposed  to  do.  Not  one  merchant  supported  this 
scheme  ;  but  it  will  be  revived. 

FRANCE  will  soon  have  Louisiana.  A  formal  treaty  has 
already  given  it  to  her,  and  all  our  papers  have  published  its 
contents.  She  only  waits  for  a  more  convenient  season  :  she 
waits  to  conquer  the  islands.  She  waits  to  let  the  true  Ameri 
cans  recover  from  their  fears,  and  have  her  partisans  profit  by 
their  superiority  in  our  counsels.  She  will  depend  on  our 
fears,  to  do  all  the  mischief  she  meditates  against  Great.  Bri 
tain,  as  a  peace-offering,  to  obtain  the  delay  of  that  which  she 
meditates  against  us  ;  but  she  will  not  delay  it  long,  even 
though  we  should  commence  a  war  of  acts  of  congress  against 
British  ships  and  manufactures. 

LOUISIANA  will  produce  as  much  cotton,  as  Great  Britain, 
imports  ;  Georgia  already  yields  two  thirds  of  that  amount. 
France  will  be  in  a  hurry  to  send  her  legions  to  settle  these 
fertile  lands,  vast  enough  in  extent  for  an  empire.  She  will  / 
be  able  to  block  up  the  Mississippi.  She  will  be  able  to  make 
terms .  for  our  degradation.  She  will  menace  our  frontiers, 
while  her  faction  in  our  bosom  will  enfeeble  the  centre.  In  a 
military  and  financial  view,  we  shall  become  weaker  than 
ever,  at  the  very  moment  when  we  shall  more  than  ever  have 
need  of  force. 

OUR  wealth,  supposed  by  the  democratick  babblers  to  be 
the  incentive  to  war,  is  the  security  for  our  tamcness.  To 


268  POLITICAL  REVIEW. 

get,  and  to  keep,  and  to  enjoy,  is  the  spirit  of  our  nation  ;  but 
to  keep  with  honour  and  security,  is  no  part  of  common  arith- 
inedck.  The  world,  France  excepted,  is  now  peopled  with 
Dutchmen.  England  is  made  tame  by  her  banking  and  fund 
ed  wealth  :  she  is  bound  in  golden  chains.  France  intends  to 
take  them  off,  and  to  put  on  chains  of  iron.  Compared  with 
England,  France  is  now  what  her  own  Parisian  rabble  was  in 
1790,  prone  to  any  change,  because  there  is  much  wealth  to 
be  gained,  none  to  be  hazarded.  Our  half-witted  democrats 
insist,  that  great  wealth  produces  war.  So  far  is  this  from 
being  true,  that  the  pursuit  and  the  possession  of  wealth  make 
a  nation  not  less  servile  than  sordid,  willing  to  take  kicks  for 
pay,  and  to  prefer  gain  to  honour  and  security.  France  has 
the  spiiit  of  a  camp ;  the  peace  of  Amiens  shews,  that  Eng 
land  has  that  of  a  counting-house. 


POLITICAL  REVIEW.    N°.  III. 

CORRECT  views  of  European  politicks  lead  to  sound  re 
sults  of  the  publick  judgment  on  our  own.  We  have  been 
long,  too  long,  amused  with  the  democratick  prattle  about  the 
love  of  peace,  and  the  love  of  our  fellow-men,  and  the  millen 
nium,  that  would  begin  as  soon  as  all  kings  were  murdered, 
and  all  the  citizen  kings  were  fairly  crammed  together,  forty 
deep,  into  a  Philadelphia  state-house-yard,  or  a  Paris  field  of 
Mars,  or  a  London  Copenhagen-house,  to  exercise,  as  a  tri 
umphant  mob,  their  imprescriptible  and  more  than  royal  rights 
and  functions.  On  tl.e  contrary,  instead  of  perpetual  peace 
among  nations,  we  see  a  state  of  things,  which  renders  all 
hope  of  any  long  peace  ridiculously  chimerical.  Two  mighty 
champions  stand  observing  each  other ;  and,  though  they  have 
suspended  the  combat,  they  have  not  laid  aside  their  arms  : 
they  are  furbishing  them  up,  expecting  to  renew  it.  England 
is  in  dread  for  her  existence  ;  France  is  full  of  impatience  to 
effect  the  consummation  of  her  ambition.  Peace  will  afford 
neither  to  the  one  nor  the  other  an  hour  of  relaxation  or  repose. 


POLITICAL  REVIEW.  269 

It  will  turn  no  swords  into  plough-shares ;  but  it  is  an  awful 
interval  of  danger  and  terrour,  which  requires,  that  England, 
at  least,  should  beat  her  plough-shares  into  swords.  Including 
her  militia,  her  land  forces  will  exceed  in  the  peace  establish 
ment,  as  it  is  called,  the  number  she  had  on  foot  at  the  end  of 
the  American  war.  A  peace,  that  requires  more  soldiers  than 
such  a  war,  is  not  the  beginning  of  the  expected  millennium. 

How  ardent  France  is  to  extend  her  domination,  no  man  of 
the  least  sense  and  observation  can  need  to  be  told.  She  has 
not  lost  a  minute  to  recover  St.  Domingo,  nor  to  prepare  a 
great  army  to  take  possession  of  Louisiana,  as  soon  as  it 
will  best  answer  her  purpose.  Since  the  preliminaries  of 
peace  were  signed  on  the  first  of  October,  1801j  Buonaparte 
has  appointed  himself  president  of  the  Italian  republick,  in 
other,  but  not  plainer,  words,  king  of  Italy.  She  has  a  treaty 
with  Portugal,  which  brings  her  near  enough  to  the  mouth  of 
the  great  river  Amazon,  to  secure  at  a  future  day,  her  com 
mand  of  the  vast  territory,  bigger  than  all  France,  lying  on  that 
river.  She  has  prohibited  all  importation  of  English  manufac 
tures  ;  and  has  obliged  her  viceroy,  the  king  of  Spain,  and  her 
subjects  in  Holland,  to  do  the  like. 

WITH  these  decisive  marks  of  rooted  hostility,  with  these 
undisguised  preparations  of  the  means  to  renew  the  contest, 
whenever  it  can  be  done  with  the  best  prospect  of  subverting 
the  government  and  independence  of  Great  Britain,  with  all 
the  parade  of  equipping  new  navies  in  France,  and  her  Spanish 
and  Dutch  provinces,  and  with  her  legion  of  honour,  the  con 
suls,  pretorian  guards,  and  with  the  draft  of  twice  sixty  thou 
sand  men,  to  fill  up  the  ranks  of  her  armies,  who  will  doubt, 
that  she  is  intent  on  the  schemes  of  her  ambition,  and  will  go 
to  war  on  the  first  favourable  occasion  for  their  accomplish 
ment  ? 

WHETHER  Great  Britain  is  competent  to  defend  herself 
against  a  force  so  vast,  and  a  spirit  of  hostility  so  rancorous 
and  ardent,  is  a  question  of  infinite  importance  to  the  whole 
civilized  world,  and,  perhaps,  of  as  much  to  the  United  States, 
as  to  any  nation  in  it. 


270  'POLITICAL  REVIEW. 

TIHE  examination  of  this  subject  deserves  the  best  pens.  We 
invite  men  of  ability  to  favour  us  with  such  authentick  state 
ments  of  the  commerce,  revenue,  and  forces  of  the  British 
empire  and  of  France,  as  will  assist  us  to  make  conjectures. 
The  world  is  threatened  with  subjection  to  French  military 
despotism.  Unless  Great  Britain  can  defend  herself,  we  are 
to  look  for  such  another  age  of  iron,  as  passed  in  the  twelfth 
century,  when  soldiers  were  ruffians,  and  all  that  were  not  sol 
diers  were  slaves.  .  \ 

IN  this  scene  it  is  some  consolation  to  perceive,  that  Britain, 
at  length,  discerns  her  danger.  The  popularity  of  the  peace 
is  greatly  impaired  ;  and  the  aggrandizement  of  France,  since 
the  preliminaries,  has  awakened  the  pride  and  the  fears  of 
the  nation. 

BRITISH  wealth,  commerce,  and  naval  force  have  greatly 
increased  since  the  peace  of  1783.  Her  manufactures  export 
ed  at  that  period  were  about  nine  million  and  a  half  of  pounds 
sterling  ;  at  the  peace  of  1801,  twenty  four  millions.  Her  whole 
exports,  in  17 '83,  fourteen  millions  ;  in  1801,  thirty  Jive  millions. 
In  1783,  her  merchant  shipping /<°ss  than  six  hundred  thousand 
tons;  in  \801,jfifteen  hundred  thousand.  In  1783,  her  armed 
ships  of  all  sorts  in  commission,  less  than  four  hundred  ;  in 
1801,  seven  hundred. 

As  this  great  increase,  however,  is  owing,  in  a  great  mea 
sure  to  the  war,  the  question  returns,  will  Great  Britain  be 
able  to  keefi  this  superiority  over  France  and  her  dependencies  ? 
During  the  war,  the  British  navy  destroyed  the  commerce 
and  navigation  of  her  enemies.  This  forced  them  to  make  use 
of  American  ships  and  capital  to  do  that  for  them,  which  Great 
Britain  would  not  permit  them  to  do  for  themselves.  Hence, 
the  vast  profits  of  American  ships  and  merchants ;  and  hence, 
too,  the  absurd  clamour  of  the  democrats,  who  cursed  Great 
Britain,  as  the  tyrant  of  the  seas,  because  she  forced  our  rivals 
to  become  our  customers.  The  boasted  principle  of  free  shifis, 
free  goods,  would  deprive  the  United  States  of  a  great  part  of 
the  fair  profits  of  their  neutrality.  Belligerent  nations  could, 
in  that  case,  transact  their  own  affairs,  and  neutrals  would  have 


POLITICAL  REVIEW.  271 

no  gains  but  freight.  This  observation  is  a  digression,  but  it 
was  obviously  proper  to  make  it,  as  the  democrats  have  never 
ceased  to  misrepresent  the  subject. 

IT  is  little  to  be  expected,  that  America  will  retain  all  her 
navigation  and  commerce.  The  nations,  which  the  British 
navy  depressed,  are  now  making  regulations  to  revive  their 
commerce  and  their  colony  monopolies.  France,  the  boasted 
friend  of  commercial  liberty,  is  setting  the  example.  Indeed 
it  is  clear,  that  the  sole  object  of  her  policy  is,  to  stir  up  every 
nation  to  a  contest  with  England,  to  break  down  the  English 
navigation  act,  and  to  establish  a  more  rigorous  monopoly  sys 
tem  of  her  own. 

THE  vast  capital  of  England,  augmented,  as  it  is,  beyond 
all  former  times,  and  beyond  all  proportion  with  her  rivals, 
her  manufacturing  skill,  and  the  excellence  and  stability  of  her 
government,  so  favourable  to  property,  are  advantages,  which 
France  has  little  to  counterbalance,  except  the  goodness  of  her 
soil  and  climate,  and  the  populousness  of  her  territory.  Great 
Britain  has  gained  much,  in  respect  to  political  strength,  by 
her  union  with  Ireland,  a  measure,  that  will  extend  her  growth 
for  some  ages  ;  for  Ireland  is  yet  semi-barbarous,  and  the 
more  it  civilizes,  the  more  it  will  augment  the  strength  of  the 
empire.  The  conquest  of  Tippoo's  country,  the  Mysore,  in 
India,  consolidates  her  valuable  dominions  in  that  quarter  of 
the  globe.  Ceylon  is  an  important  acquisition,  and  we  wish  it 
was  in  our  power  to  state,  how  important,  to  English  com 
merce.  In  the  West-Indies,  Trinidad  is  large  enough  to 
absorb  many  millions  of  British  capital,  and  to  become  another 
Jamaica. 

ON  the  whole,  France  has  gained  power,  and  has  lost  nothing 
of  her  arrogance  ;  Great  Britain  sees  her  danger,  and,  without 
having  lost  any  of  her  strength,  has  recovered  her  spirits. 


I    272    ] 
MONITOR. 

First  published  in  the  Palladium,  April,  1804. 

XJLCCIDENT  may  give  rise  and  extent  to  republicks,  but 
the  fixed  laws  that  govern  human  actions  and  passions  will 
decide  their  progress  and  fate.  By  looking  into  history  and 
seeing  what  has  been,  we  know  what  will  be.  It  is  thus  that 
dumb  experience  speaks  audibly ;  it  is  thus  that  witnesses 
come  from  the  dead  and  testify.  Are  we  warned  ?  No.  Are 
we  roused  ?  No.  We  lie  in  a  more  death-like  sleep  than  those 
witnesses.  Yet  let  us  hear  their  testimony,  though  it  should 
not  quicken  our  stupidity,  but  only  double  the  weight  of  our 
condemnation. 

THE  experiment  of  a  republick  was  tried,  in  all  its  forms, 
by  the  Romans.  While  they  occupied  only  one  city,  and  a 
few  miles  of  territory  near  its  walls,  they  had  all  the  virtues 
and  sustained  all  the  toils  and  perils  of  a  camp.  Every  Roman 
was  born  a  soldier,  and  the  state  entrusted  arms  to  the  hands  of 
those  .only  who  had  rights  and  rank  as  citizens.  But  when 
Rome  extended  her  empire  over  all  Italy,  and  then  over  all 
Asia  Minor,  her  size  rendered  her  politicks  unmanageable ; 
and  power  in  her  town-meetings,  where  the  rabble  at  length 
out-voted  the  real  citizens,  corrupted  all  virtue,  extinguished 
all  shame,  and  trampled  on  all  right,  liberty,  and  justice.  Our 
constitution,  as  Washington  left  it,  is  good ;  but  as  amend 
ments  and  faction  have  now  modelled  it,  it  is  no  longer  the 
same  thing. 

WE  now  set  out  with  our  experimental  project,  exactly 
where  Rome  failed  with  hers  :  we  now  begin,  where  she 
ended.  We  think  it  wise  to  spread  over  half  this  Western 
hemisphere  a  form,  and  it  is  only  a  form,  of  government  that 
answered  for  Rome,  while  Rome  governed  a  territory  as  nar 
row  as  the  district  of  Columbia.  The  Romans  were  awed  by 
oaths,  and  restrained  by  the  despotism  of  a  camp  ;  for  in  every 
camp,  where  there  is  not  mutiny,  there  must  be  despotism 


MONITOR.  275 

\Ve  Americans,  who  laugh  at  the  difference,  if  difference  there 
be,  between  twenty  Gods  and  no  God  ;  we,  who  have  lost  our 
morals,  prate  about  our  liberty.  We  think,  that  what  the  Ro 
mans,  with  the  Scipios,  and  Catuli,  and  Catos,  could  not  keep, 
we,  with  our  Jeffersons,  cannot  lose.  Those  great  Romans 
thought  it  better  not  to  live  at  all,  than  to  live  slaves  ;  but  we 
care  more  for  our  ease  than  our  rights.  We  can  bear  injustice 
better  than  expense ;  and  we  dread  war  infinitely  more  than 
dishonour.  Hence,  when  we  had  our  election,  we  chose  in 
famy,  and  paid  fifteen  millions  for  it:  we  compensated  the 
aggressor  for  the  fatigue  of  kicking  us  ;  and  we  celebrate,  as  a 
jubilee,  that  treaty  that  has  made  our  debasement  an  article  of 
the  law  of  nations.  If  Rome  had  ever  tamely  borne  the  wrongs 
that  we  took,  not  merely  patiently,  but  thankfully,  joyfully,  from 
Spain  and  Buonaparte,  Rome  would  never  have  been  more 
than  a  walled  town,  where  valiant  robbers  secured  their  booty. 
But  we  who  take  insults  from  slaves,  and  think  it  victory  and 
glory,  to  buy  the  forbearance  of  a  tyrant,  we  talk  of  Roman 
liberty,  as  if  we  were  emulous  of  it.  The  Romans  honoured 
virtue,  and  loved  glory,  and  thought  it  cheaply  purchased  with 
their  blood  ;  we  love  money,  and,  if  we  had  glory,  we  should 
joyfully  truck  it  off  for  more  money,  or  another  Louisiana. 
With  such  a  difference  of  spirit,  are  we  to  hold  the  republican 
sceptre,  that  is  to  sway  a  million  square  miles  of  territory  ?  If 
we  resemble  any  thing  Roman,  it  is  such  a  domination  as 
Spartacus,  and  his  gladiators  and  slaves,  would  have  establish 
ed,  if  they  had  succeeded  in  their  rebellion.  The  government 
of  the  three  fifths  of  the  ancient  dominion,  and  the  offscourings 
of  Europe,  has  no  more  exact  ancient  parallel. 

THE  plebeians  t}f  Rome  asserted  their  right  to  serve  in  the 
highest  offices,  and  at  length  obtained  it ;  but  the  people  still 
chose  the  most  able  and  eminent  men,  who  were  patricians,  and 
rejected  their  worthless  tribunes.  But  we  see  our  tribunes  suc 
cessful  :  the  judges  are  at  the  bar,  and  the  whiskey  leaders  sit  in 
judgment  upon  them.  Surely  that  people  have  lost  their  morals, 
who  bestow  their  votes  on  those  who  have  none  j  surely  they 


274  MONITOR. 

have  lost  their  liberties,  when  their  judges  tremble  more  than 
their  culprits. 

THE  Romans  maintained  some  barrier  about  popular  rights, 
as  long  as  the  tribunes  were  sacred  ;  but  when  Tiberius  moved 
the  people  to  depose  Octavius,  a  fellow  tribune,  then  violence 
ruled  the  assemblies,  and  even  the  shadow  of  liberty  was  lost. 
We  have  seen  the  judiciary  law  repealed,  and  the  judges, 
though  made  sacred  by  the  constitution,  in  like  manner  deposed. 

THE  Romans,  in  the  days  of  their  degeneracy  and  corrup 
tion,  set  no  more  bounds  to  their  favour,  than  to  their  resent 
ments.  While  Pompey  was  their  idol,  they  conferred  unlimited 
authority  upon  him,  over  all  the  Mediterranean  sea,  and  four 
hundred  stadia  (about  forty  five  miles)  within  lund.  We,  in 
like  manner,  devolve  on  Mr.  Jefferson  the  absolute  and  uncon 
trolled  dominion  of  Louisiana.  It  was  thus  the  Romans  were 
made,  by  their  own  -uote^  familiar  with  arbitrary  power. 

IN  the  contests  of  their  factions,  the  conc/uerors  inflicted  all 
Jiossible  evils  on  the  fallen  fiarty  ;  and  thus  they  tasted  and  liked 
the  sweetness  of  revenge.  Except  in  removals  from  office, 
and  newspaper  invectives,  in  this  point  our  experience  is 
yet  deficient ;  but,  from  the  spirit  of  ardent  malice  apparent  in 
the  dominant  faction,  it  is  manifest,  that  we  have  men,  who, 
though  sparing  enough  of  their  own  blood,  would  rival  Marius 
or  Anthony  in  lavishing  that  of  their  enemies. 

THE  Romans  were  not  wholly  sunk  from  liberty,  till  morals 
and  religion  lost  their  power.  But  when  the  Thomas  Paines, 
and  those  who  recommended  him,  as  a  champion  against  "  the 
presses"  of  that  day,  had  introduced  the  doctrines  of  Epicu 
rus,  the  Roman  people  became  almost  as  corrupt  as  the  French 
are  now,  and  almost  as  shameless  as  the  favoured  patriots  ~o$ 
our  country,  who  are  the  first  to  get  office. 

GRADUALLY,  all  power  centred  in  the  Roman  populace. 
While  they  voted  by  centuries,  (the  comitia  centuriata)  pro 
perty  had  influence,  and  could  defend  itself ;  but,  at  length,  the 
doctrine  of  universal  suffrage  prevailed.  The  rabble,  not  only 
of  Rome,  but  of  all  Italy,  and  of  all  the  conquered  nations, 
flowed  in.  In  Tiberim^  dejiuxit  Orontes.  Rome  could  no 


MONITOR.  275 

more  be  found  in  Rome  itself,  than  we  can  see  our  own  coun 
trymen  in  the  Duanes  and  Gallatins,  and  Louisianians,  of  the 
present  day.  The  senate  of  Rome  sunk  to  nothing  ;  the  own 
er*  uf  the  country  no  longer  governed  it.  A  single  assembly 
seemed  to  govern  the  world,  and  the  worst  men  in  it  governed 
that  assembly. 

THUS  we  see  the  passions  and  vices  of  men  operate  uni 
formly.  What  remains,  and  there  is  not  much  of  this  resem* 
blance  that  remains,  unfinished,  will  be  completed. 

THE  chief  hazard  that  attends  the  liberty  of  any  great  peo 
ple,  lies  in  their  blindness  to  the  danger.  A  weak  people 
may  descry  ruin  before  it  overwhelms  them,  without  any 
power  to  retard  or  repel  its  advance  ;  but  a  powerful  nation, 
like  our  own,  can  be  ruined  only  by  its  blindness,  that  will  not 
see  destruction  as  it  comes  ;  or  by  its  apathy  and 'selfishness, 
that  will  not  stir,  though  it  see3  it. 

OUR  fate  is  not  foretold  by  signs  and  wonders  :  the  meteors 
do  not  indeed  glare  in  the  form  of  types,  and  print  it  legibly 
in  the  sky  ;  but  our  warning  is  as  distinct,  and  almost  as 
awful,  as  if  it  were  announced  in  thunder  by  the  concussion  of 
all  the  elements. 


C    276    ] 

THE  REPUBLICAN. 
N°.  I. 

First  published  in  the  Repertory,  yuly,  180-1. 

W  E  enjoy,  or  rather,  till  very  lately,  we  did  enjoy  liberty  to* 
as  great  an  extent,  as  it  has  ever  been  asserted,  and  to  a  much 
greater,  than  it  has  ever  been  successfully  maintained.  Kind 
heaven  that  gave  it,  best  knows  how  frail  the  tenure  and 
how  short  its  date  !  Vanity,  our  only  national  passion,  that  is 
never  cloyed  with  its  feasts,  nor  tired  with  its  activity,  rates 
high  enough  the  pride  of  our  distinction  as  a  free  people, 
without  once  regarding  the  perils  which  environ  tJaa,  as  eveiy 
other  sort  of  pre-eminence.  We  have  absurdly  and  presump 
tuously  considered  our  condition  as  citizens,  not  as  a  state  of 
probation  for  the  trial  of  our  virtues,  but  the  heaven  where 
their  indolence  is  to  find  rest,  and  their  selfishness  an  ever 
lasting  reward.  We  have  dared  to  suppose  our  political  pro 
bation  was  over,  and  that  a  republican  constitution,  when  once 
fairly  engrossed  in  parchment,  was  a  bridge  over  chaos  that 
could  defy  the  discord  of  all  its  elements.  The  decision  of  a 
majority,  adopting  such  a  constitution,  has  sounded  in  our  ears 
like  a  voice  saying  to  the  tempestuous  sea  of  liberty,  thus  far 
shalt  thou  go,  and  here  shall  thy  proud  waves  be  stayed. 

HENCE  it  is,  that  the  unthinking  and  least-informed  of  our 
citizens  have  been  so  ready  to  look  with  levity  and  distrust  on 
senates,  courts,  and  judges,  the  bulwarks  of  our  liberty,  and 
with  complacency  on  the  licentious  faction  that  is  destined  to 
subvert  it.  We  have  read  ourselves,  or  have  been  told  by 
those  whom  ancient  history  has  instructed,  that  republicks 
breed  factions,  and  that  factions  breed  tyrants.  We  have  seen 
this  faction,  and  its  favourites  who  are  thirsting  to  be  tyrants, 
but  we  have  sought  and  found  comfort  in  our  vanity,  when  it 
asserts,  that  we  have  the  sense  to  unmask  our  flatterers,  and 
the  virtue  that  will  scorn  their  bribes  ;  we,  therefore,  shall 
stand,  though  the  liberty  of  Greece  has  perished.  All  this  we 


THE  REPUBLICAN.  2J7 

continue  to  say,  while  we  see  an  election  carried  against  a 
majority  of  freemen,  and  an  administration,  that  has  prostrated 
the  judiciary  and  the  constitution,  that  has  its  hirelings  and 
emissaries  scattered  over  the  face  of  the  land,  and  that  has  un 
constitutionally  annexed  to  the  United  States  an  empire,  as  a 
fund  for  patronage,  and  in  which  executive  despotism  is  es 
tablished  by  law.  We  see  ourselves  in  the  full  exercise  of  the 
forms  of  election,  when  the  substance  is  gone.  We  have 
some  members  in  congress  with  a  faithful  meanness  to  repre 
sent  our  servility,  and  others  to  represent  our  nullity  in  the 
union  ;  but  our  vote  and  influence  avail  no  more,  than  that  of 
the  Isle  of  Man  in  the  politicks  of  Great  Braitain.  If,  then, 
we  have  not  survived  our  political  liberty,  we  have  lived  long 
enough  to  see  the  pillars  of  its  security  crumble  to  powder. 
If  the  middle  and  Eastern  states  still  retain  any  thing  in  the 
union  worth  possessing,  we  hold  it  by  a  precarious  and  de 
grading  tenure  ;  not  as  of  right,  but  by  sufferance  ;  not  as  the 
guarded  treasure  of  freemen,  but  as  the  pittance,  which  the 
disdain  of  conquerors  has  left  to  their  captives. 

WHILE  we  look  round  with  grief  and  terrour  on  so  much 
of  the  work  of  destruction,  as  three  years  have  accomplished, 
we  resolve  to  hope  and  sleep  in  security  for  the  future.  We 
will  not  believe,  that  the  actual  prevalence  of  a  faction  is  any 
thing  worse,  than  an  adverse  accident,  to  which  all  human 
affairs  are  liable.  Demagogues  have  taken  advantage  of  our 
first  slumbers,  but  we  are  awaking  and  shall  burst  their  "  Lilli 
putian  ties ;"  and  as  we  really  do  expect,  that  the  jacobins  will 
divide,  and  that  ***  and  others  will  turn  state's  evidence  to  con 
vict  their  accomplices,  we  resolve  to  indulge  our  hopes  and  our 
indolence  together,  and  leave  it  to  time,  no  matter  what  time, 
and  truth,  to  do  their  slow  but  sure  work,  without  our  concur 
rence.  Wre  still  cherish  the  theories  that  are  dear  to  our 
vanity.  WTe  still  expect,  that  men  will  act  in  their  politicks, 
as  if  they  had  no  passions,  and  will  be  most  callous  or  superi- 
our  to  their  influence  at  the  very  moment,  when  the  arts  of 
tyrants  or  the  progress  of  public  k  disorders  have  exalted 
them  to  fury.  Then,  yes,  then,  in  that  chosen  hour,  reason 


2?8  THE  REPUBLICAN. 

will  display  her  authority,  because  she  will  be  free  to  combat 
errour.  Her  voice  will  awe  tumult  into  silence  :  revolution 
will  quench  her  powder  when  it  is  half  exploded  ;  the  thunder 
will  be  checked  in  mid  volley. 

SUCH  are  the  consolations  that  bedlam  gives  to  philosophy, 
and  that  philosophy  faithfully  gives  back  to  bedlam — .and  bed 
lam  enjoys  them.  The  Chronicle,  with  the  fervour  of  scur 
rility  and  all  the  sincerity  of  ignorance,  avers,  that  there  is  no 
danger — our  affairs  go  on  well ;  and  Middlesex  is  comforted. 
They  can  see  no  danger :  if  Etna  should  daze,  it  would  not 
cure  the  moles  of  their  blindness. 

BUT  all  other  men  who  have  eyes  are  forced  to  confess, 
that  the  progress  of  our  affairs  is  in  conformity  with  the  fixed 
laws  of  our  nature,  and  the  known  course  of  republicks.  Our 
wisdom  made  a  government  and  committed  it  to  our  virtue  to 
keep;  but  our  passions  have  engrossed  it,  and  they  have 
armed  our  vices  to  maintain  their  usurpation. 

WHAT  then  are  we  to  do  ?  Are  we  to  sit  still,  as  hereto 
fore,  till  we  are  overtaken  by  destruction,  or  shall  we  rouse 
now,  late  as  it  is,  and  shew  by  our  effort  against  a  jacobin  fac 
tion,  that,  if  we  cannot  escape,  we  will  not  deserve,  our  fate  ? 


THE  REPUBLICAN.    N°.  II. 

WE  justly  consider  the  condition  of  civil  liberty  as  the  most 
exalted,  to  which  any  nation  can  aspire  ;  but  high  as  its  rank 
is,  and  precious  as  are 'its  prerogatives,  it  has  not  pleased 
God,  in  the  order  of  his  providence,  to  confer  this  pre-eminent 
blessing,  except  upon  a  veiy  few,  and  those  very  small,  spots 
of  the  universe.  The  rest  sit  in  darkness,  and  as  little  desire 
the  light  of  liberty,  as  they  are  fit  to  endure  it. 

W^E  are  ready  to  wonder,  that  the  best  gifts  are  the  most 
sparingly  bestowed,  and  rashly  to  conclude,  that  despotism  is 
the  decree  of  heaven,  because  by  far  the  largest  part  of  the 
world  lies  bound  in  its  fetters.  But,  either  on  tracing  the 


THE  REPUBLICAN.  279 

course  of  events  in  history,  or  on  examining  the  character  and 
passions  of  man,  we  shall  find,  that  the  work  of  slavery  is  his 
own,  and  that  he  is  not  condemned  to  wear  chains,  till  he  has 
been  his  own  artificer  to  forge  them.  We  shall  find,  that 
society  cannot  subsist,  and  that  the  streets  of  Boston  would  be 
worse  than  the  lion's  den,  unless  the  appetites  and  passions  of 
the  violent  are  made  subject  to  an  adequate  control.  How 
much  control  will  be  adequate  to  that  end,  is  a  problem  of  no 
easy  solution  beforehand,  and  of  no  sort  of  difficulty  after  some 
experience.  For  all  who  have  any  thing  to  defend,  and  all, 
indeed,  who  have  nothing  to  ask  protection  for,  but  their  lives, 
will  desire  that  protection  ;  and  not  only  acquiesce,  but  rejoice 
in  the  progress  of  those  slave-making  intrigues  and  tumults, 
which,  at  length,  assure  to  society  its  repose,  though  it  sleeps 
in  bondage.  Thus  it  will  happen,  and,  as  it  is  the  course  of 
nature,  it  cannot  be  resisted,  that  there  will  soon  or  late  be 
control  and  government  enough. 

IT  is,  also,  obvious,  that  there  may  be,  and  probably  will 
be,  the  least  control  and  the  most  liberty  there,  where  the 
turbulent  passions  arc  the  least  excited,  and  where  the  old 
habits  and  sober  reasons  of  the  people  are  left  free  to  govern 
them. 

HENCE  it  is  undeniably  plain,  that  the  mock  patriots,  the 
opposers  of  Washington  and  the  constitution,  from  1788  to 
this  day,  who,  under  pretext  of  being  the  people's  friends, 
have  kept  them  in  a  state  of  continual  jealousy,  irritation, 
and  discontent,  have  deceived  the  people,  and  perhaps  them 
selves,  in  regard  to  the  tendency  of  their  principles  and  con 
duct  ;  for,  instead  of  lessening  the  pressure  of  government, 
and  contracting  the  sphere  of  its  powers,  they  have  removed 
the  field-marks  that  bounded  its  exercise,  and  left  it  arbitrary 
and  without  limits.  The  passions  of  the  people  have  been 
kept  in  agitation,  till  the  influence  of  truth,  reason,  and  the 
excellent  habits  we  derive  from  our  ancestors  is  lost  or  greatly 
impaired  ;  till  it  is  plain,  that  those,  whom  manners  and  morals 
can  no  longer  govern,  miist  be  governed  by  force  j  and  that 


280  THE  REPUBLICAN. 

force  a  dominant  faction  derives  from  the  passions  of  its 
adherents  :  on  that  alone  they  rely. 

TAKE  one  example,  which  will  illustrate  the  case  as  well  as 
a  hundred :  the  British  treaty  was  opposed  by  a  faction,  headed 
by  six  or  eight  mob  leaders  in  our  cities,  and  a  rabble,  whom 
the  arts  of  these  leaders  had  trained  for  their  purpose.  Could 
a  feeble  government,  could  mere  truth  and  calm  reason,  point 
ing  out  the  best  publick  interest,  have  carried  that  treaty 
through  and  effected  its  execution  in  good  faith,  had  not  the 
virtue  and  firmness  of  Washington  supplied  an  almost  super 
human  energy  to  its  powers  at  the  moment  ?  No  treaty  made 
by  the  government  has  ever  proved  more  signally  beneficial. 
The  nature  of  the  treaty,  however,  is  not  to  the  point  of  the 
present  argument.  Suppose  a  mob  opposition  had  defeated  it, 
and  confusion,  if  not  war,  had  ensued,  the  confusion  that  every 
society  is  fated  to  suffer,  when,  on  a  trial  of  strength,  a  faction 
in  its  bosom  is  found  stronger  than  its  government ;  on  this 
supposition,  and  that  the  conquering  faction  had  seized  the 
reins  of  power,  is  it  to  be  believed,  that  they  would  not  in 
stantly  provide  against  a  like  opposition  to  their  own  treaties  ? 
Did  they  not  so  provide,  and  annex  Louisiana,  and  squander 
millions  in  a  week  ?  Have  we  not  seen  in  France,  how  early 
and  how  effectually  the  conqueror  takes  care  to  prevent 
another  rival  from  playing  the  same  game,  by  which  he  him 
self  prevailed  against  his  predecessor  ? 

LET  any  man,  who  has  any  understanding,  exercise  it  to 
see,  that  the  American  jacobin  party,  by  rousing  the  popular 
passions,  inevitably  augments  the  powers  of  government,  and 
contracts  within  narrower  bounds,  and  on  a  less  sound  founda 
tion,  the  privileges  of  the  people. 

FACTS,  yes,  facts  that  speak  in  terrour  to  the  soul,  confirm 
this  speculative  reasoning.  What  limits  are  there  to  the  pre 
rogatives  of  the  present  administration  ?  and  whose  business  is 
it,  and  in  whose  power  does  it  lie,  to  keep  them  within  those 
limits  ?  Surely  not  in  the  senate  ;  the  small  states  are  .now  in 
vassalage,  and  they  obey  the  nod  of  Virginia.  Not  in  the  judi 
ciary  ;  that  fortress,  which  the  constitution  had  made  too  strong 


THE  REPUBLICAN.  o$i 

for  an  assault,  can  now  be  reduced  by  famine.  The  constitu 
tion,  alas  !  that  sleeps  with  Washington,  having  no  mourners 
but  the  virtuous,  and  no  monument  but  history.  Louisiana,  in 
open  and  avowed  defiance  of  the  constitution,  is  by  treaty  to  be 
added  to  the  union :  the  bread  of  the  children  of  the  union  is 
'Q  be  taken  and  given  to  the  dogs. 

JUDGE,  then,  good  men  and  true,  judge  by  the  effects, 
whether  the  tendency  of  the  intrigues  of  the  party  was  to 
extend  or  contract  the  measure  of  popular  liberty.  Judge, 
whether  the  little  finger  of  Jefferson  is  not  thicker  than  the 
loins  of  Washington's  administration  ;  and,  after  you  have 
judged,  and  felt  the  terrour  that  will  be  inspired  by  the  result, 
then  reflect,  how  little  your  efforts  can  avail  to  prevent  the 
continuance,  nay,  the  perpetuity  of  his  power.  Reflect,  and 
be  calm  !  Patience  is  the  virtue  of  slaves,  and  almost  the  only 
one  that  will  pass  for  merit  with  their  masters. 


[    282    3 


A  SKETCH 

OF 

THE  CHARACTER  OF  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON. 


i  HE  following  sketch,  written  immediately  after  the  death  of  the  ever  to  be  lamented 
Hamilton,  was  read  to  a  select  company  of  friends,  and  at  their  desire  it  first  appeared  in 
the  Repertory,  July.  1804. 

AT  is  with  really  great  men  as  with  great  literary  works,  the 
excellence  of  both  is  best  tested  by  the  extent  and  durableness 
of  their  impression.  The  publick  has  not  suddenly,  but  after 
an  experience  of  five  and  twenty  years,  taken  that  impression 
of  the  just  celebrity  of  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON,  that  nothing 
but  his  extraordinary  intrinsick  merit  could  have  made,  and 
still  less,  could  have  made  so  deep  and  maintained  so  long.  In 
this  case,  it  is  safe  and  correct  to  judge  by  effects :  we  some 
times  calculate  the  height  of  a  mountain,  by  measuring  the 
length  of  its  shadow. 

IT  is  not  a  party,  for  party  distinctions,  to  the  honour  of  our 
citizens  be  it  said,  are  confounded  by  the  event ;  it  is  a  nation, 
that  weeps  for  its  bereavement.  We  weep,  as  the  Romans 
did  over  the  ashes  of  Germanicus.  It  is  a  thoughtful,  forebod 
ing  sorrow,  that  takes  possession  of  the  heart,  and  sinks  it  with 

no  counterfeited  heaviness. 

» 

IT  is  here  proper  and  not  invidious  to  remark,  that,  as  the 
emulation  excited  by  conducting  great  affairs  commonly  trains 
and  exhibits  great  talents,  it  is  seldom  the  case,  that  the  fairest 
and  soundest  judgment  of  a  great  man's  merit  is  to  be  gained, 
exclusively,  from  his  associates  in  counsel  or  in  action.  Per 
sons  of  conspicuous  merit  themselves  are,  not  unfrequently, 
bad  judges  and  still  worse  witnesses  on  this  point ;  often  rivals, 
sometimes  enemies ;  almost  always  unjust,  and  still  oftener 
envious  or  cold.  The  opinionsM.hey  give  to  the  publick,  as  well 
us  those  they  privately  formed  for  themselves,  are,  of  course, 
discoloured  with  the  hue  of  their  prejudices  and  resentments. 


SKETCH  OP  HAMILTON.  283 

BUT  the  body  of  the  people,  who  cannot  feel  a  spirit  of  rival- 
ship  towards  those,  whom  they  see  elevated  by  nature  and 
education  so  far  above  their  heads,  are  more  equitable,  and, 
supposing  a  competent  time  and  opportunity  for  information 
on  the  subject,  more  intelligent  judges.  Even  party  rancour, 
eager  to  maim  the  living,  scorns  to  strip  the  slain.  The  most 
hostile  passions  are  soothed  or  baffled  by  the  fall  of  their  anta 
gonist.  Then,  if  not  sooner,  the  very  multitude  will  fairly  decide 
on  character,  according  to  their  experience  of  its  impression  ; 
and  as  long  as  virtue,  not  unfrequently  for  a  time  obscured,  is 
ever  respectable  when  distinctly  seen,  they  cannot  withhold, 
and  they  will  not  stint  their  admiration. 

IF  then  the  popular  estimation  is  ever  to  be  taken  for  the 
true  one,  the  uncommonly  profound  publick  sorrow  for  the 
death  of  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON  sufficiently  explains  and  vin 
dicates  itself.  He  had  not  made  himself  dear  to  the  passions 
of  the  multitude  by  condescending,  in  defiance  of  his  honour 
and  conscience,  to  become  their  instrument :  he  is  not  lamented, 
because  a  skilful  flatterer  is  now  mute  for  ever.  It  was  by  the 
practice  of  no  art,  by  wearing  no  disguise ;  it  was  not  by  acci 
dent,  or  by  the  levity  or  profligacy  of  party,  but  in  despite  of 
its  malignant  misrepresentation  ;  it  was  by  bold  and  inflexible 
adherence  to  truth,  by  loving  his  country  better  than  himself, 
preferring  its  interest  to  its  favour,  and  serving  it,  when  it  was 
unwilling  and  unthankful,  in  a  manner  that  no  other  person 
could,  that  he  rose ;  and  the  true  popularity,  the  homage  that 
is  paid  to  virtue,  followed  him.  It  was  not  in  the  power  of 
party  or  envy  to  pull  him  down  ;  but  he  rose  with  the  re 
fulgence  of  a  star,  till  the  very  prejudice,  that  could  not  reach, 
was  at  length  almost  ready  to  adore  him. 

IT  is,  indeed,  no  imagined  wound  that  inflicts  so  keen  an 
anguish.  Since  the  news  of  his  death,  the  novel  and  strange 
events  of  Europe  have  succeeded  each  other  unregarded ;  the 
nation  has  been  enchained  to  its  subject,  and  broods  over  its 
grief,  which  is  more  deep  than  eloquent,  which  though  dumb, 
can  make  itself  felt  without  utterance,  and  which  does  not 


284  SKETCH  OF 

merely  pass,  but,  like  an  electrical  shock,  at  the  same  instant 
smites  and  astonishes,  as  it  passes  from  Georgia  to  Newhamp- 
shire, 

THERE  is  a  kind  of  force  put  upon  our  thoughts  by  this 
disaster,  which  detains  and  rivets  them  to  a  closer  contempla 
tion  of  those  resplendent  virtues,  that  are  now  lost,  except  to 
memory,  and  there  they  will  dwell  for  ever. 

THAT  writer  would  deserve  the  fame  of  a  publick  benefac 
tor,  who  could  exhibit  the  character  of  HAMILTON,  with  the 
truth  and  force  that  all  who  intimately  knew  him  conceived  it : 
his  example  would  then  take  the  same  ascendant,  as  his  talents. 
The  portrait  alone,  however  exquisitely  finished,  could  not 
inspire  genius  where  it  is  not ;  but,  if  the  world  should  again 
have  possession  of  so  rare  a  gift,  it  might  awaken  it  where  it 
sleeps,  as  by  a  spark  from  heaven's  own  altar ;  for,  surely,  if 
there  is  any  thing  like  divinity  in  man,  it  is  in  his  admiration 
of  virtue. 

BUT  who  alive  can  exhibit  this  portrait?  If  our  age,  on  that 
supposition  more  fruitful  than  any  other,  had  produced  two 
HAMILTONS,  one  of  them  might  then  have  depicted  the  other. 
To  delineate  genius  one  must  feel  its  power:  HAMILTON,  and 
he  alone,  with  all  its  inspirations,  could  have  transfused  its 
whole  fervid  soul  into  the  picture,  and  swelled  its  lineaments 
into  life.  The  writer's  mind,  expanding  with  his  own  peculiar 
enthusiasm,  and  glowing  with  kindred  fires,  would  then  have 
stretched  to  the  dimensions  of  his  subject. 

SUCH  is  the  infirmity  of  human  nature,  it  is  very  difficult  for 
a  man,  who  is  greatly  the  superiour  of  his  associates,  to  pre 
serve  their  friendship  without  abatement ;  yet,  though  he  could 
not  possibly  conceal  his  superiority,  he  was  so  little  inclined  to 
display  it,  he  was  so  much  at  ease  in  its  possession,  that  no 
jealousy  or  envy  chilled  his  bosom,  when  his  friends  obtained 
praise.  He  was,  indeed,  so  entirely  the  friend  of  his  friends, 
so  magnanimous,  so  superiour,  or,  more  properly,  so  insensi 
ble  to  all  exclusive  selfishness  of  spirit,  so  frank,  so  ardent,  yet 
so  little  overbearing,  so  much  trusted,  admired,  beloved,  almost 
adored,  that  his  power  over  their  affections  was  entire,  and 


HAMILTON.  285 

lasted  through  his  life.  We  do  not  believe,  that  he  left  an}' 
worthy  man  his  foe,  who  had  ever  been  his  friend. 

MEN  of  the  most  elevated  minds  have  not  always  the  readiest 
discernment  of  character.  Perhaps  he  was  sometimes  too  sud 
den  and  too  lavish  in  bestowing  his  confidence  :  his  manly  spi 
rit,  disdaining  artifice,  suspected  none.  But,  while  the  power 
of  his  friends  over  him  seemed  to  have  no  limits,  and  really 
had  none,  in  respect  to  those  things  which  were  of  a  nature  to 
be  yielded,  no  man,  not  the  Roman  Cato  himself,  was  more  in 
flexible  on  every  point  that  touched,  or  only  seemed  to  touch, 
integrity  and  honour.  With  him,  it  was  not  enough  to  be  un 
suspected  ;  his  bosom  would  have  glowed,  like  a  furnace,  at 
its  own  whispers  of  reproach.  Mere  purity  would  have  seemed 
to  him  below  praise  ;  and  such  were  his  habits,  and  such  his 
nature,  that  the  pecuniary  temptations,  which  many  others  can 
only  with  great  exertion  and  self-denial  resist,  had  no  attrac 
tions  for  him.  He  was  very  far  from  obstinate  ;  yet,  as  his 
friends  assailed  his  opinions  with  less  profound  thought,  than 
he  had  devoted  to  them,  they  were  seldom  shaken  by  discus 
sion.  He  defended  them,  however,  with  as  much  mildness  as 
force,  and  evinced,  that,  if  he  did  not  yield,  it  was  not  for  want 
of  gentleness  or  modesty. 

THE  tears  that  flow  on  this  fond  recital,  will  never  dry  up. 
My  heart,  penetrated  with  the  remembrance  of  the  man,  grows 
liquid  as  I  write,  and  I  could  pour  it  out  like  water.  I  could 
weep  too  for  my  country,  which,  mournful  as  it  is,  does  not 
know  the  half  of  its  loss.  It  deeply  laments,  when  it  turns  its 
eyes  back,  and  sees  what  HAMILTON  'was  ;  but  my  soul  stiffens 
with  despair,  when  I  think  what  HAMILTON  would  have  been. 

His  social  affections  and  his  private  virtues  are  not,  however, 
so  properly  the  object  of  publick  attention,  as  the  conspicuous 
and  commanding  qualities  that  gave  him  his  fame  and  influence 
in  the  world.  It  is  not  as  Apollo,  enchanting  the  shepherds 
with  his  lyre,  that  we  deplore  him  ;  it  is  as  Hercules,  treach 
erously  slain  in  the  midst  of  his  unfinished  labours,  leaving  the 
world  overrun  with  monsters. 


286  SKETCH  OF 

His  early  life  we  pass  over  ;  though  his  heroick  spirit,  in 
the  army,  has  furnished  a  theme,  that  is  dear  to  patriotism,  and 
•will  be  sacred  to  glory. 

IN  all  the  different  stations,  in  which  a  life  of  active  useful 
ness  has  placed  him,  we  find  him  not  more  remarkably  dis 
tinguished  by  the  extent,  than  by  the  variety  and  versatility  of 
his  talents.  In  every  place  he  made  it  apparent,  that  no  other 
man  could  have  filled  it  so  well ;  and  in  times  of  critical  impor 
tance,  in  which  alone  he  desired  employment,  his  services 
were  justly  deemed  absolutely  indispensable.  As  secretary  of 
the  treasury,  his  was  the  powerful  spirit  that  presided  over 
the  chaos : 

Confusion  heard  his  voice,  and  wild  uproar 
Stood  ruled .... 

INDEED,  in  organizing  the  federal  government  in  1789,  every 
man,  of  either  sense  or  candour,  will  allow,  the  difficulty  seem 
ed  greater  than  the  first-rate  abilities  could  surmount.  The 
event  has  shewn,  that  his  abilities  were  greater  than  those  diffi 
culties.  He  surmounted  them — and  Washington's  administra 
tion  was  the  most  wise  and  beneficent,  the) most  prosperous,  and 
ought  to  be  the  most  popular,  that  ew1  was  intrusted  with 
the  affairs  of  a  nation.  Great  as  was  Washington's  merit, 
much  of  it  in  plan,  much  in  execution,  will  of  course  devolve 
upon  his  minister. 

As  a  lawyer,  his  comprehensive  genius  reached  the  princi 
ples  of  his  profession  :  he  compassed  its  extent,  he  fathomed 
its  profound,  perhaps,  even  more  familiarly  and  easily,  than 
the  ordinary  rules  of  its  practice.  With  most  men  law  is  a 
trade  ;  with  him  it  was  a  science. 

As  a  statesman,  he  was  not  more  distinguished  by  the  great 
extent  of  his  views,  than  by  the  caution  with  which  he  provid 
ed  against  impediments,  and  the  watchfulness  of  his  care  over 
right  and  the  liberty  of  the  subject.  In  none  of  the  many 
revenue  bills,  which  he  framed,  though  committees  reported 
them,  is  there  to  be  found  a  single  clause  that  savours  of  des- 
potick  power  ;  not  one  that  the  sagest  champions  of  law  and 
liberty  would,  on  that  ground,  hesitate  to  approve  and  adopt. 


HAMILTON.  287 

IT  is  rare,  that  a  man,  who  owes  so  much  to  nature,  descends 
to  seek  more  from  industry  ;  but  he  seemed  to  depend  on  indus 
try,  as  if  nature  had  done  nothing  for  him.  His  habits  of 
investigation  were  very  remarkable  ;  his  mind  seemed  to  cling 
to  his  subject,  till  he  had  exhausted  it.  Hence  the  uncommon 
superiority  of  his  reasoning  powers,  a  superiority,  that  seemed 
to  be  augmented  from  every  source,  and  to  be  fortified  by  every 
auxiliary,  learning,  taste,  wit,  imagination,  and  eloquence. 
These  were  embellished  and  enforced  by  his  temper  and  man 
ners,  by  his  fame  and  his  virtues.  It  is  difficult,  in  the  midst 
of  such  various  excellence,  to  say,  in  what  particular  the  effect 
of  his  greatness  was  most  manifest.  No  man  more  promptly 
discerned  truth  ;  no  man  more  clearly  displayed  it :  it  was  not 
merely  made  visible — it  seemed  to  come  bright  with  illumina 
tion  from  his  lips.  But  prompt  and  clear  as  he  was,  fervid  as 
Demosthenes,  like  Cicero,  full  of  resource,  he  was  not  less 
remarkable  for  the  copiousness  and  completeness  of  his  argu 
ment,  that  left  little  for  cavil,  and  nothing  for  doubt.  Some 
men  take  their  strongest  argument  as  a  weapon,  and  use  no 
other  ;  but  he  left  nothing  to  be  inquired  for  more-— nothing 
to  be  answered.  He  not  only  disarmed  his  adversaries  of  their 
pretexts  and  objections,  but  he  stripped  them  of  all  excuse 
for  having  urged  them  ;  he  confounded  and  subdued,  as  well 
as  convinced.  He  indemnified  them,  however,  by  making  his. 
discussion  a  complete  map  of  his  subject ;  so  that  his  oppo 
nents  might,  indeed,  feel  ashamed  of  their  mistakes,  but  they 
could  not  repeat  them.  In  fact,  it  was  no  common  effort  that 
could  preserve  a  really  able  antagonist  from  becoming  his 
convert ;  for  the  truth,  which  his  researches  so  distinctly  pre 
sented  to  the  understanding  of  others,  was  rendered  almost 
irresistibly  commanding  and  impressive  by  the  love  and  reve 
rence,  which,  it  was  ever  apparent,  he  profoundly  cherished 
for  it  in  his  own.  While  patriotism  glowed  in  his  heart,  wis 
dom  blended  in  his  speech  her  authority  with  her  charms. 

SUCH,  also,  is  the  character  of  his  writings.  Judiciously 
collected,  they  will  be  a  publick  treasure. 


288  SKETCH  OF 

No  man  ever  more  disdained  duplicity?  or  carried  frankness 
further  than  he.  This  gave  to  his  political  opponents  some 
temporary  advantages,  and  currency  to  some  popular  preju 
dices,  which  he  would  have  lived  down,  if  his  death  had  not  pre 
maturely  dispelled  them.  He  knew,  that  factions  have  ever 
in  the  end  prevailed  in  free  states  ;  and,  as  he  saw  no  security 
(and  who  living  can  see  any  adequate  ?)  against  the  destruction 
of  that  liberty  which  he  loved,  and  for  which  he  was  ever  ready 
to  devote  his  life,  he  spoke  at  all  times  according  to  his  anxious 
forebodings ;  and  his  enemies  interpreted  all  that  he  said  accord 
ing  to  the  supposed  interest  of  their  party. 

BUT  he  ever  extorted  confidence,  even  when  he  most  pro 
voked  opposition.  It  was  impossible  to  deny,  that  he  was  a 
patriot,  and  such  a  patriot,  as,  seeking  neither  popularity  nor 
office,  without  artifice,  without  meanness,  the  best  Romans  in 
their  best  days  would  have  admitted  to  citizenship  and  to  the 
consulate.  Virtue,  so  rare,  so  pure,  so  bold,  by  its  very  purity 
and  excellence,  inspired  suspicion,  as  a  prodigy.  His  enemies 
judged  of  him  by  themselves  :  so  splendid  and  arduous  were 
his  services,  they  could  not  find  it  in  their  hearts  to  believe, 
that  they  were  disinterested. 

UNPARALLELED  as  they  were,  they  were,  nevertheless,  no 
otherwise  requited,  than  by  the  applause  of  all  good  men, 
and  by  his  own  enjoyment  of  the  spectacle  of  that  national 
prosperity  and  honour,  which  was  the  effect  of  them.  After 
facing  calumny,  and  triumphantly  surmounting  an  unrelenting 
persecution,  he  retired  from  office,  with  clean,  though  empty 
hands,  as  rich  as  reputation  and  an  unblemished  integrity  could 
make  him. 

SOME  have  plausibly,  though  erroneously,  inferred  from  the 
great  extent  of  his  abilities,  that  his  ambition  was  inordinate. 
This  is  a  mistake.  Such  men,  as  have  a  painful  conscious 
ness,  that  their  stations  happen  to  be  far  more  exalted  than 
their  talents,  are  generally  the  most  ambitious.  HAMILTON,  on 
the  contrary,  though  he  had  many  competitors,  had  no  rivals  ; 
for  he  did  not  thirst  for  power,  nor  would  he,  as  it  was  well 
known,  descend  to  office..  Of  course,  he  suffered  no  pain 


HAMILTON.  289 

from  envy,  when  bad  men  rose,  though  he  felt  anxiety  for  the 
publick.  He  was  perfectly  content  and  at  ease,  in  private 
life.  Of  what  was  he  ambitious?  Not  of  wealth — no  man 
held  it  cheaper.  Was  it  of  popularity  ?  That  weed  of  the 
dunghill,  he  knew,  when  rankest,  was  nearest  to  withering. 
There  is  no  doubt,  tkat  he  desired  glory,  which  to  most  men 
is  too  inaccessible  to  be  an  object  of  desire  ;  but,  feeling  his 
own  force,  and  that  he  was  tall  enough  to  reach  the  top  of 
Pindus  or  of  Helicon,  he  longed  to  deck  his  brow  with  the 
wreath  of  immortality.  A  vulgar  ambition  could  as  little 
comprehend,  as  satisfy,  his  views :  he  thirsted  only  for  that 
fame,  which  virtue  would  not  blush  to  confer,  nor  time  to  con 
vey  to  the  end  of  his  course. 

THE  only  ordinary  distinction,  to  which,  we  confess,  he  did 
aspire,  was  military  ;  and  for  that,  in  the  event  of  a  foreign 
war,  he  would  have  been  solicitous.  He  undoubtedly  discov 
ered  the  predominance  of  a  soldier's  feelings  ;  and  all  that  is 
honour,  in  the  character  of  a  soldier,  was  at  home  in  his  heart. 
His  early  education  was  in  the  camp  ;  there  the  first  fervours 
of  his  genius  were  poured  forth,  and  his  earliest  and  most  cor 
dial  friendships  formed  ;  there  he  became  enamoured  of  glory, 
and  was  admitted  to  her  embrace. 

THOSE  who  knew  him  best,  and  especially  in  the  army,  will 
believe,  that,  if  occasions  had  called  him  forth,  he  was  qualified, 
beyond  any  man  of  the  age,  to  display  the  talents  of  a  great 
general. 

IT  may  be  very  long,  before  our  country  will  want  such 
military  talents  ;  it  will  probably  be  much  longer,  before  it  will 
again  possess  them. 

ALAS  !  the  great  man  who  was,  at  all  times,  so  much  the 
ornament  of  our  country,  and  so  exclusively  fitted,  in  its 
extremity,  to  be  its  champion,  is  withdrawn  to  a  purer  and 
more  tranquil  region.  We  are  left  to  endless  labours  and 
unavailing  regrets. 

Such  honours  Ilion  to  her  hero  paid, 
And  peaceful  slept  the  mighty  Hector's  shade. 
37 


290  SKETCH  OF  HAMILTON. 

THE  most  substantial  glory  of  a  country,  is  in  its  virtuous 
great  men  :  its  prosperity  will  depend  on  its  docility  to  learn 
from  their  example.  That  nation  is  fated  to  ignominy  and 
servitude,  for  which  such  men  have  lived  in  vain.  Power 
may  be  seized  by  a  nation,  that  is  yet  barbarous ;  and  wealth 
may  be  enjoyed  by  one,  that  it  finds,  or  renders  sordid  :  the  one 
is  the  gift  and  the  spoil  of  accident,  and  the  other  is  the  sport 
of  power.  Both  are  mutable,  and  have  passed  away  without 
leaving  behind  them  any  other  memori.l  than  ruins  that 
offend  taste,  and  traditions  that  baffle  conjecture.  But  the 
glory  of  Greece  is  imperishable,  or  will  last  as  long  as  learn 
ing  itself,  which  is  its  monument :  it  strikes  an  everlasting  root, 
and  bears  perennial  blossoms  on  its  grave.  The  name  of 
HAMILTON  would  have  honoured  Greece,  in  the  age  of  Aris- 
tides.  May  heaven,  the  guardian  of  our  liberty,  grant,  that 
our  country  may  be  fruitful  of  HAMILTONS,  and  faithful  to 
their  glory. 


C    291    ] 
REFLECTIONS  ON  THE  WAR  IN  EUROPE. 

First  published  in  tlie  Repertory,  May,  1805. 

JL  WELVE  years  ago,  the  war  that  was  kindled  by  the 
French  revolution  was  represented  to  be  exclusively  worthy 
of  the  attention  of  Americans.  While  the  French  were  pul 
ling  down  their  government,  nothing  seemed  so  fine  us  their 
very  worst  conduct,  to  the  party  who  were  leagued  together 
to  pull  down  our  own.  They  called  our  eyes  to  the  banks  of 
the  Rhine,  where  the  battles  of  liberty,  as  they  were  fools 
enough  to  say,  were  fighting ;  and  we  roasted  oxen  for  joy, 
because  Pichegru  took  Amsterdam,  and  made  the  Dutch  as 
free  as  the  West-India  negroes. 

THIS  sort  of  noise  is  a  good  deal  hushed,  for  two  reasons : 
one  is,  the  jacobins  have  got  their  object,  and  our  govern 
ment  is  down;  the  other  is,  the  mask  of  French  hypocrisy- 
has  dropped  off,  or  is  so  torn  in  their  scuffles,  that  we  can 
plainly  see  the  knaves'  faces  of  their  liberty-loving  dema 
gogues.  French  examples  are  not  now  quoted,  now,  when, 
they  are  most  instructive,  because  they  really,  in  some  de 
gree,  alarm  and  deter  the  dupes  whom  they  lead  :  asses  trot 
the  better  in  dangerous  roads,  for  wearing  their  blinders. 
Hence  it  is,  that  our  lords  and  masters  of  Virginia  affect  to 
dislike  all  discussions  of  the- political  probabilities  of  the  war, 
and  to  consider  our  curiosity  as  useless  and  badly  directed. 
Our  lazy  masters  are,  in  fact,  so  engrossed  with  the  care  of 
governing  us  for  their  own  exclusive  benefit,  that  they  have 
not  much  relish  for  any  other  reflections ;  and,  besides  all 
other  considerations,  Mr.  Jefferson  and  his  cabinet  have  a 
mortal  dread  of  the  power  of  Buonaparte,  which  has  not  been 
in  the  least  abated  by  their  experienced  necessity,  since  the 
purchase  of  Louisiana,  to  court  and  flatter  him.  They  are 
quaking  with  fear  that  he  will  require  from  them  more 
assistance,  than  they  dare  either  to  eive  or  refuse  him,  They 


292  REFLECTIONS  ON 

have  yielded  the  point  with  regard  to  the  trade  with  St. 
Domingo,  with  as  much  poverty  of  spirit  as  might  be  ex 
pected ;  and  our  seamen  will  be  whipped  and  buried  in 
dungeons,  or  tucked  up  at  the  yard  arm,  as  the  great  nation 
may  by  its  emperour  think  fit  to  decree.  The  trade  is  not 
denied  to  be  lawful,  yet  its  interdiction  is  better,  no  doubt 
our  patriots  will  say,  than  a  war. 

WE  have  seen,  too,  how  quarrelsome  an  act  Mr.  ***  was 
disposed  to  get  passed  for  the  protection  of  our  seamen,  that 
is  of  British  seamen,  who  were  to  be  forcibly  protected,  when 
they  had  deserted  to  our  vessels. 

IN  all  this,  and  in  every  thing  else,  the  power  of  Buona 
parte  crosses  the  Atlantick.  It  is  childish  to  inquire,  what 
harm  do  we  suffer  by  his  making  himself  king  of  Italy  ?  We 
answer,  by  his  power  he  makes  himself  the  king  of  terrours 
to  Mr.  Jefferson ;  and  if  we  are  not  embroiled  with  England 
to  please  him,  it  is  because,  afraid  as  our  brave  rulers  are  of 
Buonaparte,  they  are  still  more  afraid  of  getting  into  a  war 
with  England,  that  would  instantly  smash  their  popularity  to 
atoms. 

LET  no  person  that  remembers  Mr.  Madison's  famous 
commercial  resolutions,  in  which  he  proposed  to  fight  for 
France  by  a  war  of  regulations,  let  no  such  person  deny  the 
effective  and  dangerous  influence  of  the  preponderant  power 
of  France  on  the  peace  and  safety,  the  honour,  and,  let  us 
add,  the  honesty  of  our  government.  For,  be  it  remembered 
also,  the  ever  to  be  abhorred  project  of  confiscating  British 
debts  grew  out  of  the  same  passion  for  France  and  hostility 
to  England. 

NOR  is  the  loss  of  that  silly  fondness  a  security  for  spirited 
and  independent  counsels  in  America.  Our  rulers  are  of  a 
sort  and  character  to  act  from  their  fears ;  and  their  fear  is  a 
much  more  steady  cause  of  action  than  their  love.  Of  course, 
we  are  to  expect,  that  the  vast  power  of  France  will  not  cease 
to  manifest  itself,  to  the  injury  of  our  trade,  to  the  oppression 
of  our  brave  seamen,  and  to  the  infinite  disgrace  of  the  gov 
ernment  that  abandons  them. 


THE  WAR  IN  EUROPE.  293 

LET  us  then  dare  to  survey  this  huge  Colossus,  about 
whose  legs  we  have  the  honour  to  creep. 

THERE  was  a  time,  when  the  people  of  France  were  really 
infatuated  with  the  notion  of  republican  liberty.  They  say 
themselves,  it  was  a  delusion,  and  has  passed  away.  But  it 
lasted  long  enough  to  break  down  and  destroy  every  thing 
in  France  that  was  not  military,  and  by  its  contagion  in  Ger 
many,  Holland,  Switzerland,  and  Italy,  to  enfeeble  and  divide 
all  the  force  that  ought  to  have  resisted  France.  The  con 
quests  of  France  have  flattered  the  national  vanity,  and,  by 
accumulating  the  spoils  of  so  many  nations,  have,  in  part, 
filled  up  the  void  that  was  made  by  the  destruction  of  com 
mercial  and  manufacturing  capital.  Instead  of  the  opulence 
of  the  crowded  mart  or  busy  workshop,  the  country  was  filled 
like  the  camp  of  Attilaor  Tamerlane,  with  spoils  and  trophies. 
The  naval  superiority  of  the  British,  by  destroying  their 
trade,  has  contributed  to  decide  and  prolong  this  exclusively 
military  character  of  the  French. 

WE  are,  then,  to  view  France  as  a  political  phenomenon, 
not  less  tremendous  by  her  having  renounced  every  trade 
but  that  of  a  conqueror,  than  by  her  colossal  size.  Like  the 
old  Romans,  and,  indeed,  like  every  other  nation  intoxicated 
with  a  passion  for  conquest,  the  French  are  completely  mili 
tary,  and  their  ardour  is  a  kind  of  fanaticism,  such  as  made 
the  successors  of  Mahomet  the  monarchs  of  the  East. 

THE  Romans,  in  like  manner,  contended,  for  almost  five 
centuries,  with  the  petty  nations  of  Italy,  their  equals  in 
valour,  their  inferiours  only  in  discipline.  In  this  hardy 
school,  they  were  trained  for  conquest.  But,  after  they  had 
gained  the  dominion  of  Italy,  they  never  again  contended 
with  their  equals.  The  Carthaginians,  though  sustained  for 
sixteen  years  by  the  transcendent  genius  of  Hannibal,  were 
almost  equally  enfeebled  by  their  spirit  of  commerce  and 
their  spirit  of  faction.  The  Macedonians,  like  the  modern 
Prussians,  had  a  fine  army,  a  full  treasury,  and  a  state  of  but 
moderate  extent,  hemmed  in  by  jealous,  hostile  neighbours. 
In  conquering  them  and  the  rest  of  Greece,  the  Romans 


294  REFLECTIONS  ON 

found  the  ^Etolians  and  some  other  states  ready  to  accept 
chains,  and  to  impose  them  on  their  countrymen.  The  light 
of  Greece,  the  most  refulgent  the  world  ever  saw,  was 
quenched  with  its  liberty.  Egypt  was  so  sunk  in  vice,  that 
it  fell  without  a  contest.  Antiochus  the  great,  king  of  Syria, 
had  an  infinite  number  of  men,  but  few  soldiers.  The  glory 
and  the  spoils  of  his  conquest  were  greater  than  its  difficulty. 
Gaul,  the  modern  France,  was  filled  with  barbarians,  who  had 
not  the  sense  nor  perhaps  the  power  to  unite  against  Cesar, 
and  they  fell  in  succession.  Spain  resisted  longer  and  more 
desperately,  but  not  as  a  nation  combined  to  resist  an  invader, 
but  by  endless  partial  insurrections  to  throw  off  its  chains. 

THE  power  of  Mithridates  was  too  recently  formed,  and 
composed  of  states  too  near  barbarism,  to  contend  with  Rome ; 
ye<  for  many  years  he  proved  her  most  dreaded  foe. 

THUS  it  was,  that  the  chief  difficulties  in  conquering  the 
old  world  were  really  surmounted,  before  Rome  was  known 
to  have  formed  the  design,  or,  perhaps,  was  conscious  she 
had  it  to  undertake. 

FRANCE,  in  like  manner,  has  been  for  many  centuries  ex 
ercised  in  arms.  She  has  had  to  contend  with  all  her  neigh 
bours,  her  equals  in  valour,  her  inferiours  in  military  institu 
tions  and  spirit.  Thus,  a  nation  has  been  educated  for  the 
conquest  of  the  world.  Spain,  once  her  superiour,  is  now 
her  vassal.  Austria,  her  rival,  is  chained  to  a  prison  floor  by 
her  hatred  of  Prussia,  her  dread  of  France,  and,  perhaps,  her 
still  greater  dread  of  Russia.  Fear  and  policy  will  both 
make  her  subservient  to  Buonaparte,  unless  he  should  prefer 
the  active  assistance  of  Prussia  to  that  of  Austria.  He  seems 
to  have  the  best  grounds  to  expect,  that,  if  Russia  should 
be  his  enemy,  he  will  have  one  of  the  other  two  for  an  ally. 
On  this  supposition,  we  can  scarcely  conceive  of  an  efficient 
alliance  against  France  on  the  continent  of  Europe.  While 
its  numerous  states  were  independent,  and  the  safety  of  each 
was  the  care  of  all,  the  ambition  of  France  was  more  trouble 
some  than  formidable.  In  this  school  of  policy  and  arms, 
this  gymnasium,  in  which  all  strenuously  contended  and  in 


THE  WAR  IN  EUROPE.  295 

turns  excelled,  France,  like  a  prize-fighter,  acquired  the  har 
diness,  the  dexterity,  and  the  force,  that  have  made  her  the 
victor.  The  revolution  has  suddenly  opened  her  eyes  to 
contemplate  her  situation,  and  all  her  ardour  is  awakened  by 
perceiving,  that,  already,  more  than  half  her  ambitious  work 
is  done.  Less  fighting,  less  hazard,  than  her  rivalships  with 
the  house  of  Austria  have  cost  the  Bourbons,  will  make  her 
mistress  of  Europe  from  the  Baltick  to  the  Hellespont.  With 
sixty  millions  of  people  in  France  and  its  dependencies,  half 
the  population  of  the  Roman  empire  under  Trajan,  she  has 
twice  the  force.  The  Russians,  like  the  ancient  Parthians, 
are  her  only  enemies  on  land,  and  they  are  too  distant  to  be 
formidable. 

THE  other  states  of  Europe,  England  excepted,  are  more 
than  half  subdued  by  their  divisions  and  their  fears. 

IT  is  absurd  to  suppose,  that  this  power,  so  tremendous  to 
every  lover  of  his  country,  will  be  inert  for  want  of  pecuni 
ary  resources.  The  Dutch  and  Italians  sow,  and  the  French 
reap.  Sic  vos  non  -uobis  fertia  aratra  doves.  Old  Rome,  after 
the  conquest  of  Macedonia,  subsisted  for  more  than  a  hun 
dred  years  by  tributes  without  taxes.  Mahomet,  Genghis 
Khan,  and  Tamerlane  did  not  stop  to  ask  their  collectors  of 
taxes,  whether  they  should  conquer  Asia. 

NOR  will  the  people  of  France  grow  weary  or  ashamed  of 
their  yoke,  and  rise  to  throw  it  off:  they  are  nothing,  the 
army  is  every  thing.  Besides,  they  are  really  proud  of  the 
glory  of  their  master,  and  from  their  very  souls  rejoice  in 
the  distinction  of  their  chains. 

CAN  it  be,  some  will  say,  that  the  man,  who  basely  fled 
from  his  brave  comrades  in  Egypt,  the  man  red  with  assassi 
nation  at  Joppa,  the  obscure  Corsican,  an  emperour  only  by 
his  crimes,  will  be  preferred  to  the  Bourbons  ?  Yes ;  the 
army  prefers  him.  The  revolution,  like  a  whirlwind  has 
swept  all  the  ncient  hierarchy,  nobility,  and  land  proprietors 
away,  and  the  new  race  have  an  interest  to  maintain  the  new 
establishments  of  the  usurpation.  Did  the  populace  of  Rome 
ever  shift  their  government,  because  an  usurper  had  obtained 


296  REFLECTIONS  ON 

the  people  by  money  or  by  blood  ?  No  ;  as  soon  as  men  per* 
ceive,  that  there  is  a  force  superiour  to  their  own,  they  desist 
from  making  any  efforts  against  it :  the  proud  Romans  were 
as  passive  in  the  yoke,  as  the  Dutch  are  now. 

THE  destinies  of  the  civilized  world,  then,  obviously  depend 
on  their  ability  to  resist  this  new  Roman  domination.  Russia 
has  no  fears  of  being  subjugated,  and,  for  that  very  reason, 
will  act  with  less  zeal  and  less  faithfulness  in  what  ought  to 
be  the  common  cause  against  France.  She  will  pursue  the 
projects  of  her  ambition,  which  seek  aggrandizement  in  the 
South  of  Europe,  and  as  a  naval  power.  Hence,  it  is  to  be 
feared,  her  coalition  with  England  will  not  be  cordial  enough 
to  be  successful :  and  the  only  sort  of  success  that  is  of  any 
moment  in  this  discussion,  is  the  reduction  of  the  power  of 
France.  Russia  aspires  to  an  influence  in  the  German 
empire,  which  cannot  fail  to  alarm  and  disgust  both  Prussia 
and  Austria ;  and  hence  it  was,  that  she  lately  interfered  in 
the  affair  of  the  German  indemnities.  She  also  seeks  a  foot 
ing  in  the  Mediterranean,  preparatory  to  her  designs  against 
the  Turks.  It  was  on  this  account  she  wished  to  occupy 
Malta,  and  that  she  now  fills  Corfu  with  her  troops.  These 
are  selfish  and  dangerous  schemes,  which  England  cannot 
second  or  approve. 

IF,  nevertheless,  Russia  should  obtain  of  Prussia  and  Aus 
tria,  that  the  one  should  be  neutral,  and  the  other  an  associ 
ate  against  France,  a  continental  war  is  to  be  expected.  In 
case  English  money  and  an  English  army  should  aid  the 
allies,  Buonaparte  would  find  his  supremacy  again  in  hazard. 

BUT  England,  the  great  adversary  of  France,  cannot  be- 
eome  a  military  nation,  in  the  sense  that  the  French  are,  nor, 
it  is  to  be  feared,  in  the  degree  that  the  crisis  absolutely 
requires  she  should.  Her  commerce  binds  her  in  golden 
fetters.  An  artisan  or  a  farmer  is  worth,  probably,  one  hun 
dred  pounds  sterling  to  the  nation.  To  make  such  men 
soldiers,  great  bounties  must  be  paid,  and  great  sacrifices 
suffered.  To  feed  and  provide  an  English  army,  is  also  very 
expensive  j  want,  and  military  fanaticism  crowd  the  ranks 


THE  WAR  IX  EUROPE.  297 

of  Buonaparte,  and  their  enemies  or  their  allies  provide  their 
subsistence.  Unfortunately  too,  Mr.  Pitt  yielded  to  the  pressure 
of  the  moment,  and  accepted  the  delusive  services  of  his  half 
million  of  volunteers.  It  is  impossible  he  should  think  these 
men  of  buckram  fit  to  withstand  the  men  of  steel,  if  they  should 
invade  the  island. 

IN  times  of  great  danger,  popular  notions  are  often  worse 
than  frivolous.  The  volunteer  force  is  factious,  expensive,  and 
useless,  as  every  soldier  knows.  But  it  is  worse.  It  has  made 
the  nation  unmanageable,  puffed  them  up  with  a  vain  depen 
dence  on  the  shew  of  force,  a  shew  as  empty  as  that  of  the 
army  of  Croesus,  and  has  made  their  rulers  afraid  to  impose, 
and  the  people  unwilling  to  bear,  the  necessary  burdens  of  real 
soldiership.  The  strength  of  a  modern  state  at  war  consists 
in  its  soldiers,  not  in  the  trappings  of  the  peaceable  apprentices, 
who  are  arrayed  in  scarlet  to  act  the  comedy  of  an  army.  Eng 
land  consumes  its  men  and  means  to  act  this  comedy,  and  19 
thus  chained  down  to  the  expense  and  the  despair  of  a  defen 
sive  system. 

HAD  she  an  efficient  disposeable  army  of  one  hundred  thou 
sand  men,  one  third  of  whom  could  be  employed  in  expeditions, 
or.  in  co-operation  with  continental  allies,  the  cause  of  Europe 
and  of  the  civilized  world  would  not  be  quite  desperate.  If 
the  enslaved  nations  would  exert  half  as  much  force  to 
recover  their  liberty,  as  the  French  will  make  them  employ 
to  subjugate  the  yet  unconquered  states,  the  contest  against 
France  might  be  renewed  with  hopes  of  advantage. 

LET  not  the  men  in  power  in  America  deceive  themselves. 
If  Buonaparte  prevails,  they  will  be  his  vassals,  even  more 
signally  than  they  are  at  present.  The  trade  of  this  country- 
has  already  twice  been  made  the  spoil  of  France.  The  inso 
lent  aggressor  is  obstructed  by  the  British  navy,  and  not  by 
his  friendship  for  us,  or  respect  for  our  rights,  from  repeating 
and  extending  his  rapacity  and  violence.  Least  of  all  is  he 
restrained  by  any  opinion  of  the  force  of  our  nation,  or  the 
spirit  of  our  government. 
38 


B 


[    298    ] 

CHARACTER  OF  BRUTUS. 
Firtt puHithed  In  the  Repertory,  Attgiisf,  1805. 


RUTUS  killed  his  benefactor  and  friend,  Cesar,  because 
Cesar  had  usurped  the  sovereign  power.  Therefore,  Brutus 
was  a  patriot,  whose  character  is  to  be  admired,  and  whose 
example  should  be  imitated,  as  long  as  republican  liberty  shall 
have  a  friend  or  an  enemy  in  the  world. 

THIS  short  argument  seems  to  have,  hitherto,  vindicated 
the  fame  of  Brutus  from  reproach  and  even  from  scrutiny ; 
yet,  perhaps,  no  character  has  been  more  over-rated,  and  no 
example  worse  applied.  He  was,  no  doubt,  an  excellent  scholar 
and  a  complete  master,  as  well  as  faithful  votary  of  philoso 
phy ;  but,  in  action,  the  impetuous  Cassius  greatly  excelled 
him.  Cassius  alone- of  all  the  conspirators  acted  with  prompt 
ness  and  energy  in  providing  for  the  war,  which,  he  foresaw, 
the  death  of  Cesar  would  kindle  ;  Brutus  spent  his  time  in 
indolence  and  repining,  the  dupe  of  Anthony's  arts,  or  of  his 
own  false  estimate  of  Roman  spirit  and  virtue.  The  people 
had  lost  a  kind  master,  and  they  lamented  him.  Brutus  sum 
moned  them  to  make  efforts  and  sacrifices,  and  they  viewed  his 
cause  with  apathy,  his  crime  with  abhorrence. 

BEFORE  the  decisive  battle  of  Philippi,  Brutus  seems,  after 
the  death  of  Cassius,  to  have  sunk  under  the  weight  of  the 
sole  command.  He  still  had  many  able  officers  left,  and  among 
them  Messala,  one  of  the  first  men  of  that  age,  so  fruitful  of 
great  men  ;  but  Brutus  no  longer  maintained  that  ascendant  over 
his  army,  which  talents  of  the  first  order  maintain  every  where, 
and  most  signally  in  the  camp  and  field  of  battle.  It  is  fairly, 
then,  to  be  presumed,  that  his  troops  had  discovered,  that 
Brutus,  whom  they  loved  and  esteemed,  was  destitute  of  those 
talents ;  for  he  was  soon  obliged  by  their  clamours,  much 
against  his  judgment,  and  against  all  prudence  and  good  sense, 
to  give  battle.  Thus  ended  the  life  of  Brutus  and  the  exist 
ence  of  the  republick. 


CHARACTER  OF  BRUTUS.  299 

WHATEVER  doubt  there  may  be  of  the  political  and  military 
capacity  of  Brutus,  there  is  none  concerning  his  virtue :  his 
principles  of  action  were  the  noblest  that  ancient  philosophy 
had  taught,  and  his  actions  were  conformed  to  his  principles. 
Nevertheless,  our  admiration  of  the  man  ought  not  to  blind 
our  judgment  of  the  deed,  which,  though  it  was  the  blemish 
of  his  virtue,  has  shed  an  unfading  splendour  on  his  name. 

FOR,  though  the  multitude  to  the  end  of  time  will  be  open 
to  flattery,  and  will  joyfully  assist  their  flatterers  to  become 
their  tyrants,  yet  they  will  never  cease  to  hate  tyrants  and 
tyranny  with  equal  sincerity  and  vehemence.  Hence  it  is,  that 
the  memory  of  Brutus,  who  slew  a  tyrant,  is  consecrated  as 
the  champion  and  martyr  of  liberty,  and  will  flourish  and  look 
green  in  declamation,  as  long  as  the  people  are  prone  to  be 
lieve,  that  those  are  their  best  friends,  who  have  proved  them 
selves  the  greatest  enemies  of  their  enemies. 

ASK  any  one  man  of  morals,  whether  he  approves  of  assas 
sination  ;  he  will  answer,  no.  Would  you  kill  your  friend  and 
benefactor  ?  No.  The  question  is  a  horrible  insult.  Would 
you  practise  hypocrisy  and  smile  in  his  face,  while  your  con 
spiracy  is  ripening,  to  gain  his  confidence  and  to  lull  him  into 
security,  in  order  to  take  away  his  life  ?  Every  honest  man,  on 
the  bare  suggestion,  feels  his  blood  thicken  and  stagnate  at  his 
heart.  Yet  in  this  picture  we  see  Brutus.  It  would,  perhaps, 
be  scarcely  just  to  hold  him  up  to  abhorrence ;  it  is,  certainly, 
monstrous  and  absurd  to  exhibit  his  conduct  to  admiration. 

HE  did  not  strike  the  tyrant  from  hatred  or  ambition :  his 
motives  are  admitted  to  be  good ;  but  was  not  the  action, 
nevertheless,  bad  ? 

To  kill  a  tyrant,  is  as  much  murder,  as  to  kill  any  other  man. 
Besides,  Brutus,  to  extenuate  the  crime,  could  have  had  no 
rational  hope  of  putting  an  end  to  the  tyranny:  he  had  fore 
seen  and  provided  nothing  to  realize  it.  The  conspirators 
relied,  foolishly  enough,  on  the  love  of  the  multitude  for  li 
berty — they  loved  their  safety,  their  ease,  their  sports,  and  their 
demagogue  favourites  a  great  deal  better.  They  quietly  looked 
on,  as  spectators,  and  left  it  to  the  legions  of  Anthony,  and 


300  CHARACTER  OF  BRUTUS. 

Octavius,  and  to  those  of  Syria,  Macedonia,  and  Greece,  to 
decide,  in  the  field  of  Philippi,  whether  there  should  be  a 
republick  or  not.  It  was,  accordingly,  decided  in  favour  of  an 
emperour ;  and  the  people  sincerely  rejoiced  in  the  political 
calm,  that  restored  the  games  of  the  circus,  and  the  plenty 
of  bread. 

THOSE,  who  cannot  bring  their  judgments  to  condemn  the 
killing  of  a  tyrant,  must  nevertheless  agree  that  the  blood  of 
Cesar  was  unprofitably  shed.  Liberty  gained  nothing  by  it, 
and  humanity  lost  a  great  deal ;  for  it  cost  eighteen  years  of 
agitation  and  civil  war,  before  the  ambition  of  the  military  and 
popular  chieftains  had  expended  its  means,  and  the  power  was 
concentred  in  one  man's  hands. 

SHALL  we  be  told,  the  example  of  Brutus  is  a  good  one, 
because  it  will  never  cease  to  animate  the  race  of  tyrant-killers. 
But  will  the  fancied  ustfulness  of  assassination  overcome  our 
instinctive  sense  of  its  horrour  ?  Is  it  to  become  a  part  of  our 
political  morals,  that  the  chief  of  a  state  is  to  be  stabbed  or 
poisoned,  whenever  a  fanatick,  a  malecontent,  or  a  reformer 
shall  rise  up  and  call  him  a  tyrant  ?  Then  there  would  be  as 
little  calm  in  despotism  as  in  liberty. 

BUT  when  has  it  happened,  that  the  death  of  a  usurper  has 
restored  to  the  publick  liberty  its  departed  life  ?  Every  suc 
cessful  usurpation  creates  many  competitors  for  power,  and  they 
successively  fall  in  the  struggle.  In  all  this  agitation,  liberty  is 
without  friends,  without  resources,  and  without  hope.  Blood 
enough,  and  the  blood  of  tyrants  too,  was  shed  between  the 
time  of  the  wars  of  Marius  and  the  death  of  Anthony,  a 
period  of  about  sixty  years,  to  turn  a  common  grist-mill ;  yet 
the  cause  of  the  publick  liberty  continually  grew  more  and 
more  desperate.  It  is  not  by  destroying  tyrants,  that  we  are 
to  extinguish  tyranny :  nature  is  not  thus  to  be  exhausted  of 
her  power  to  produce  them.  The  soil  of  a  republick  sprouts 
with  the  rankest  fertility :  it  has  been  sown  with  dragon's 
teeth.  To  lessen  the  hopes  of  usurping  demagogues,  we 
must  enlighten,  animate,  and  combine  the  spirit  of  freemen ; 
we  must  fortify  and  guard  the  constitutional  ramparts  about 


CHARACTER  OF  BRUTUS.  301 

liberty.  When  its  friends  become  indolent  or  disheartened,  it 
is  no  longer  of  any  importance  how  long-lived  are  its  ene 
mies  :  they  will  prove  immortal. 

NOR  will  it  avail  to  say,  that  the  famous  deed  of  Brutus 
will  for  ever  check  the  audacity  of  tyrants.  Of  all  passions 
fear  is  the  most  cruel.  If  new  tyrants  dread  other  Bruti, 
they  will  more  naturally  sooth  their  jealousy  by  persecutions, 
than  by  the  practice  of  clemency  or  justice.  They  will  say, 
the  clemency  of  Cesar  prpved  fatal  to  him.  They  will  aug 
ment  their  force  and  multiply  their  precautions ;  and  their 
habitual  dread  will  degenerate  into  habitual  cruelty. 

HAVE  we  not  then  a  right  to  conclude,  that  the  character 
of  Brutus  is  greatly  over-rated,  and  the  fashionable  approbation 
gf  his  example  horribly  corrupting  and  pernicious  ? 


.302    ] 


ON  THE  PROSPECT 

OF 

A  NEW  COALITION  AGAINST  FRANCE. 

First  published  in  the  Repertory,  October,  1E05. 

AT  appears  probable,  that  a  new  coalition  is  forming  against 
France,  and  that  Russia,  Sweden,  and  Austria  are  in  alliance 
with  England.  We  are  told,  that  a  great  body  of  Russians  is 
moving  through  Poland,  and  will  be  ready  to  reinforce  the 
Austrians  in  season  to  repel  any  attack,  that  the  French  usur 
per,  who  is  accustomed  to  strike  before  he  threatens,  may  be 
expected  to  make  upon  the  latter.  The  struggle  for  the  recove 
ry  of  Italy  from  the  French  is  to  be  renewed  ;  and,  instead  of 
invading  England,  Buonaparte  will  have  to  contend  once  more 
for  his  crown.  The  neutrality,  if  not  the  co-operation  of  Prus 
sia  and  Denmark,  is  foretold. 

IT  is  natural,  that  the  first  indications  of  a  powerful  confede 
racy  against  France  should  be  interpreted  to  promise  every 
thing  to  Englishmen,  weary  of  the  known  weight,  and  dejected 
by  the  prospect  of  the  unknown  length,  of  the  contest.  Coali 
tions  ever  promise  much  in  their  inception  ;  they  usually  dis 
appoint  all  in  their  progress.  A  single  power  has  generally 
proved  an  over-match  for  their  arms.  The  honey-moon  may, 
possibly^  last,  till  the  allies  have  taken  the  field  and  fought  the 
first  battle  ;  but  the  good  or  bad  fortune  of  that  baltle  is  almost 
sure  to  dissolve  the  ties  of  their  mutual  confidence,  if  not  the 
bands  of  that  alliance.  If  defeated,  they  throw  the  blame  on 
one  another  ;  if  victorious,  they  are  made  envious  and  jealous 
by  the  allotment  of  the  spoil. 

No  doubt,  Austria  will  be  hearty  in  the  cause,  for  she  will 
fight  for  .her  life  ;  but  her  very  fears  may  be  skilfully  used  by 
Buonaparte  to  detach  her  from  the  confederacy.  He  may  offer 
her  some  Turkish  provinces  ;  he  may  yield  other  points  of  real 


NEW  COALITION.  303 

magnitude,  that  will  give  her  a  temporary  security,  or  the  shew 
of  it,  which  she  may  deem  preferable  to  a  more  hazardous 
obstinacy  in  the  contest. 

THIS  Austria  may  deem  herself  almost  compelled  to  prefer, 
by  an  early  discovery  of  the  tardiness  of  the  disposition  of  the 
Russian  cabinet,  and,  perhaps,  still  more  emphatically,  by  the 
detection  of  its  immeasurable  ambition. 

RUSSIA  has,  probably,  no  fears  of  the  French,  and  can  have 
no  hopes  of  aggrandizement  by  wresting  any  thing  from  them. 
Russia  will  enter  the  lists,  therefore,  with  very  different  views, 
and  infinitely  less  ardour  than  Austria  :  she  must  engage  in  the 
war  from  calculation.  It  may  offend  her  pride,  that  the  French 
emperour  plays  the  first  part  in  Europe ;  she  may  dread  a 
great  loss  of  consideration  and  political  influence,  unless  she 
contends  with  him  ;  but  her  means  for  a  long  war  are  not  con 
siderable.  It  may  be  said,  that  England  is  rich,  and  will  supply 
the  primary  means.  Large  subsidies  will,  no  doubt,  invigo 
rate  and  hasten  the  military  operations  ot  this  power ;  it  is, 
nevertheless,  a  great  mistake,  to  suppose,  that  a  prodigious 
expense  will  not  be  left,  after  all  the  English  guineas  are  count 
ed  in  St.  Petersburg,  to  be  defrayed  by  the  Russian  govern 
ment.  These  are  reasons,  therefore,  for  a  natural  apprehension, 
that  the  efforts  of  the  Russians  will  be  made  upon  a  less  scale, 
and  with  less  energy,  and  continued  for  a  much  shorter  time, 
than  any  man  will  prescribe  for  effecting  the  only  rational 
object  of  a  continental  war,  a  reduction  of  the  colossal  power 
of  France.  All  independent  nations  must  quake  within  sight 
and  almost  within  touch  of  their  fetters,  till  this  is  done. 

AND,  to  do  it  surely,  more  than  one  campaign  is  necessary. 
France  will  assuredly  set  her  foot  on  the  world's  neck,  if  the 
force  and  the  spirit  do  not  exist  somewhere,  to  face  her  in 
arms  with  a  steadiness  equal  to  her  own  ambition.  England 
alone  has  that  force  and  spirit ;  a  confederacy  is  a  rope  of 
sand,  and  will  break  to  pieces,  or,  at  least,  manifest  its  total 
inefficiency,  in  a  year.  But,  as  soon  as  the  English  nation  can 
be  made  to  view  the  contest  in  its  true  light,  and,  what  is  ten 
times  as  much  to  the  purpose,  to  feel  it,  as  they  see  it,  they 


304  XEW  COALITION. 

will  boldly  rely  on  themselves,  and  cautiously  'ask  or  take 
assistance  from  their  allies.  For  these  allies,  the  Russians 
especially,  may  claim  the  partition  of  Turkey,  in  recompense 
of  a  longer  perseverance.  A  dismembering  ambition  would 
quench  all  hope  of  tranquillity  in  Europe.  It  would  also  inevi 
tably  dissolve  any  coalition  that  could  be  formed.  Neither 
Austria  nor  England  would  assent,  much  less  assist,  to  confer 
universal  empire  on  Russia. 

FRANCE  has  had  time  to  consolidate  her  new  empire.  All 
that  policy  and  violence  can  do,  has  been  done,  and  all  that 
arms  can  do,  will  be  done  to  maintain  her  acquisitions.  To 
maintain  them,  is,  probably,  as  much  a  national  cause  with  the 
French,  as  it  was  with  the  Romans,  to  keep  Hannibal  out  of 
Rome,  after  the  battle  of  Cannae.  French  vanity  will  not, 
therefore,  be  subdued,  it  will  be  irritated  and  roused  by 
national  losses  and  by  the  disgrace  of  their  arms.  Buona 
parte's  own  vanity,  and  that  of  his  nation,  would  probably 
require,  that  England  should  be  invaded,  if  the  ripening  of 
the  expected  coalition  should  not  furnish,  perhaps,  the  occa 
sion,  and,  certainly,  the  excuse  for  the  abandonment  of  that 
extravagant  project.  In  this  view  of  the  matter,  the  coalition 
will  prevent  more  good,  than  we  can  imagine  it  will  ever 
achieve  ;  for  of  all  the  possibilities  of  a  sfieedy  remedy  of  the 
present  enormous  evils  of  Europe,  by  the  reduction  of  the 
preponderant  power  of  France,  the  only  one  that  holds  out 
any  rational  promise,  is  that  of  the  invasion.  Two  hundred 
thousand  men  landed  in  England,  and  the  winners  of  the  first 
three  or  four  battles,  would  certainly  fall  at  last,  and  involve 
the  imperial  usurper  in  their  fall.  His  boasted  glory  would 
sink  even  faster  than  his  power.  The  enslaved  nations  would 
then  make  haste  to  break  their  chains. 

BUT  supposing  no  invasion,  which,  in  the  event  of  a  ne\r 
coalition,  is  no  longer  to  be  supposed,  it  then  becomes  impos 
sible  even  to  conceive  of  any  remedy,  but  a  late  and  exceed 
ingly  gradual  one. 

To  Jight  down  gigantick  France  to  her  former  size,  so  that 
other  nations  may  again  breathe  in  safety  and  independence, 


NEW  COALITION.  305 

can  scarcely  take  less  than  half  a  century  of  prosperous  war 
fare.  These  mushroom  products  of  accident,  money,  or  in 
trigue,  these  brittle,  ephemeral  coalitions  are  quite  inade 
quate  to  the  end.  While  they  last,  they  will  cherish  false 
hopes ;  and  when  they  fail,  they  will  engender  groundless 
fears  ;  and  for  the  next  seven  years  may  prevent  the  dis 
covery,  and  delay  the  resort  to  the  only  effective  resources  of 
safety.  For  England  alone,  we  repeat  it,  is  pledged,  is  pin 
ned,  and  nailed  down  to  the  combat.  To  sit  and  take  blows 
is  hard,  but  she  still  has  the  privilege,  the  precious,  glorious 
privilege  the  Dutch,  Swiss,  and  Italians  have  lost,  of  returning 
them.  Every  war  brings  its  burdens  and  losses,  but  this  war 
brings  its  terrours  too,  for  it  hazards,  and  will  decide  upon  her 
life  and  honour.  The  decision  cannot  be  evaded,  the  contest 
cannot  even  be  intermitted,  without  her  ruin.  By  eighteen 
months  of  treacherous  peace,  she  suffered  a  greater  reduction 
of  comparative  strength,  than  by  eight  years  of  war.  Her  war 
like  efforts  for  this  whole  century  would  not  impoverish  her  ;  a 
delusive  calm,  called  peace,  for  three  years,  would  put  an  end 
to  her  efforts  for  ever.  She  has  men,  she  has  courage,  she 
has  all  the  means  of  self-defence  ;  she  wants  only  that  over 
powering  impression  upon  her  people,  that  time  will  make, 
though  it  is  not  yet  made,  to  have  the  command  of  those 
means.  She  must  rouse,  as  Carthage  did  in  the  third  Punick 
war,  but  not  so  late.  Her  Foxes  and  her  Burdetts  will  be  silent, 
when  the  very  rabble  are  convinced,  that  England  cannot  exist 
at  all,  unless  the  power  of  France  be  reduced  ;  that,  us  long  as 
she  contends  for  the  reduction  of  that  power,  she  enjoys  both 
existence  and  glory.  She  is,  therefore,  to  choose  war,  not  as 
a  state  preferable  to  peace,  but  preferable  to  the  ignominy  of 
wearing  French  chains.  When  these  ideas,  unfortunately  so 
well  vouched  by  her  situation,  are  admitted  by  all  men  ii»  the 
nation,  (and  the  time  is  coming,  when  they  will  be  irresistible) 
every  thing  in  England  will  become  a  weapon  of  wur,  and 
every  man  a  soldier  or  sailor  to  wield  it.  The  minister  will 
have  reason  to  rely  on  the  &bundaxic£  of  resources,  ..  nd,  what 
is  more  to  the  purpose  of  the  war,  on  the  perseverance  and 
39 


306  NEW  COALITION. 

patience  of  the  publick.  English  spirit,  thus  roused,  might 
laugh  at  mercenary  coalitions  and  French  menaces.  France 
can  have  no  commerce  ;  and  a  nation  of  soldiers  must  thrive 
by  spoil,  and  not  by  manufactures.  If,  to  get  fresh  spoil,  they 
enlarge  the  circle  of  their  depredations,  they  rouse  new  ene 
mies,  and  create  more  zealous  coalitions  than  English  guineas 
can  buy. 

THESE  opinions  will,  no  doubt,  seem  extravagant  to  many 
persons  ;  but  the  evil  of  French  domination  is  now  of  many 
years  standing  :  it  is  not  very  rational  to  suppose,  that  a  battle 
or  a  campaign  is  to  cure  it.  There  are  many  evils,  which 
attend  human  life  through  the  entire  course  of  it.  Perhaps  it 
is  made,  in  wisdom,  and  in  mercy  too,  by  the  great  Ruler  of 
the  universe,  the  condition  of  an  Englishman's  life,  that  he 
shall  spend  the  whole  of  it  in  fighting  the  French  ;  and  if  his 
sons  and  his  grandsons  should  think  liberty  and  independence 
intolerable  on  these  terms,  let  them  lie  down  in  the  dust,  in 
the  peace  of  slavery,  and  try  to  forget  their  honours  and  their 
ancestors. 


307  3     K    Library. 

Of 


THE  COMBINED  POWERS  AND  FRANCE, 

First  published  in  the  Repertory,  December,  1805. 

JL  H  E  power  of  France  is  so  tremendously  preponderant, 
that  every  friend  to  the  liberty  and  independence  of  nations 
must  wish  too  see  it  reduced.  If  the  people  of  the  United 
States  deserve  one  half  the  praise  they  take  to  themselves  for 
good  sense,  such  must  be  their  wish.  Men's  heads  and  hearts 
must  be  indeed  strangely  perverted,  if  they  could  have  a  spe 
culative  liking  to  behold  one  great  tyrant  set  up  over  all  other 
nations.  To  put  it  to  the  test,  let  them  ask  themselves,  how 
they  would  incline,  if  the  question  now  was,  to  set  up  a  do- 
mestick  tyrant  over  our  own.  Every  lover  of  liberty  and  inde 
pendence  must,  therefore,  of  necessity,  be  the  enemy,  as  far 
as  wishing  goes,  of  the  French  arms  in  the  present  great 
contest.  He  will  anxiously  inquire,  is  the  new  coalition  likely 
to  reduce  the  French  power  ? 

WHEN  he  reads  of  three  hundred  thousand  Austrians,  two 
hundred  thousand  Russians,  and  perhaps  fifty  thousand  Hes 
sians  assembling  and  marching  against  Buonaparte,  he  will  be 
ready  to  exclaim,  France  cannot  withstand  such  a  force.  For 
the  first  time,  the  odds  of  numbers  is  against  her.  To  this 
array  of  armies  we  add  the  Swedes,  the  English,  who  are 
embarking,  it  is  said,  fifty  thousand,  the  Austrians  and  Hun 
garians,  who  may  yet  rise  en  masse  to  reinforce  their  em- 
perour,  and  the  immense  body  of  Russians,  who  are  kept 
ready  to  enter  Germany  and  Italy.  We  very  soon  count  up  a 
million  of  men  on  pa}ier,  and  we  feel  the  inspirations  of  the 
English  printers'  valour,  who,  already,  consider  Buonaparte  as 
dethroned. 

MEN'S  wishes  are  great  deceivers.  France  contains  more 
millions  of  men,  than  Buonaparte  can  ever  think  fit  to  array- 
in  arms,  and  he  can  array  as  many  of  them  as  he  may  want ; 
and  as  he  allows  no  trade,  commerce,  or  profession,  to  impede, 


308  THE  COMBINED  POWERS 

or  for  one  hour  to  delay  his  requisitions  ;  as  France  is  nothing 
but  military,  and  every  man  a  soldier,  whenever  Buonaparte 
has  occasion  to  call  and  make  him  such,  it  is  the  easiest  thing 
in  the  world,  for  the  French  to  outnumber  their  enemies  in  the 
field.  Add  to  this,  France  is  as  near  to  Germany,  as  the  greater 
part  of  the  subjects  of  Austria,  and  more  Germans  will  assist 
the  French  armies,  than  the  armies  of  Austria.  If  distance 
only  be  considered,  more  Frenchmen  can  be  brought  to  act  in 
the  field,  than  Austrians,  Swedes,  or  Russians. 

ANOTHER  consideration,  of  no  little  moment,  is,  that  France 
is  surrounded  by  states  newly  conquered  from  her  enemies, 
whom  she  can  squeeze,  and  even  crush,  without  any  danger  of 
resistance.  The  weight  of  the  war  may  be  thrown  upon  the 
German  circles  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine,  newly  annexed 
to  France,  upon  Hanover  and  the  German  neutral  electorates, 
upon  Spain,  Holland,  Portugal,  and  Italy.  It  will  be  asked, 
will  not  this  mode  of  overburdening  the  people,  who  are  told 
of  their  honour  and  happiness  in  being  annexed  to  France, 
render  the  French  odious,  unpopular,  and  weak  in  those  coun 
tries  ?  The  answer  is,  the  French  people  will  see,  that  their 
own  burdens  are  the  lighter  for  their  excessive  weight  on 
those  wretched  vassals.  In  the  war,  that  ended  in  1763,  the 
great  king  of  Prussia  exacted  every  thing  from  conquered 
Saxony  :  he  would  not  spare  his  enemies,  because  he  wished 
to  spare  his  subjects.  In  like  manner,  the  PVench  will  use 
the  blood,  and  sinews,  and  marrow  of  the  Dutch,  Hanove 
rians,  and  Italians,  as  if  they  were  oxen ;  nor  will  they  pro 
voke  resistance  from  those  wretches,  for  two  reasons ;  they 
will  be  watchfully  kept  down  by  French  soldiers  ;  and,  again 
be  it  noted  well,  the  French  have  not  conquered  any  country, 
without  raising  to  power  the  base  and  desperately  wicked 
among  the  conquered  people,  who,  of  course,  are  interested 
and  disposed  to  keep  their  fellow  countrymen  under  the  yoke 
of  servitude. 

THUS,  over  and  above  the  gigantick  force  of  France  itself,  it 
is  evident,  the  French  can  command  prodigious  resources  of 
men,  money,  and  every  article  of  use  in  war,  from  the  late  sub- 


AND  FRANCE.  309 

jects  of  her  enemies.  She  no  sooner  overpowers  one  enemy, 
than  she  uses  and  consumes  his  force  in  conquering  another. 

IF  we  consider  the  vast  extent  and  unexhausted  fertility  of 
the  French  territory,  including  the  dependencies  of  France, 
we  cannot  doubt,  that  means  enough  of  every  sort  exist ;  and, 
moreover,  we  can  doubt  us  little,  that  the  government  is  the 
most  formidable  despotism  existing  on  the  face  of  the  earth, 
and  can  draw  forth  those  means.  Of  men  and  warlike  re 
sources,  then,  France  has  enough. 

IT  is,  perhaps,  of  the  nature  of  despotism,  to  contract  early 
infirmities.  It  is  a  giant,  whose  first  energies  are  augmented, 
yet  wasted  by  frenzy.  It  is  a  torrent  from  the  hills,  that  nothing 
can  resist ;  yet  it,  soon  scoops  for  itself  a  channel,  wide  enough, 
indeed,  to  display  its  ravages,  but  deep  enough  to  confine  them. 
A  tyrant  cannot  reign  and  oppress  by  his  single  force  ;  he  must 
really  interest,  and  interest  prodigiously,  a  sufficient  number 
of  subordinate  tyrants  in  the  duration  of  his  power.  As  he  will 
select  these,  because  he  knows  them  to  possess  an  extraordi 
nary  share  of  ability  to  serve  him,  these  first  appointments  will 
give  ail  imaginable  efficacy  to  his  authority.  In  reward  for  serv 
ing  him,  he  must  allow  them  to  serve  themselves  ;  he  must 
wink  at  their  abuses  and  exactions.  But  after  the  lapse  of  one 
generation,  these  abuses  become  the  inheritable  rights  of  the 
first  set  of  subordinate  agents  or  their  descendants  ;  the  state 
is  exhausted  and  consumed  by  abuses,  which  time  has  made 
inveterate,  and  which  the  new-made  great  have  an  interest  in 
aggravating.  The  monster,  despotism,  whose  youth  was  pass 
ed  in  riot,  is  then  crippled  by  the  gout,  and  is  equally  disabled 
from  enduring  either  labours  or  remedies.  Nothing  can  be 
more  certain,  than  that  free  states  are  the  most  capable  of 
energy. 

BUT  a  youthful  tyrant  has  a  sort  of  preternatural 'strength, 
that  is  truly  formidable — such  is  Buonaparte's.  France  has 
thrown  off  the  incumbrances  of  ranks  and  orders,  of  laws  and 
religion,  and  seemed  to  awake  at  once  from  the  sleep  of  ages. 
Every  thing  that  is  genius  has  been  roused,  by  seeing  all  that 
is  alluring  in  power  and  wealth  brought  within  its  reach.  All 


310  THE  COMBINED  POWERS 

France  has  teemed  with  ambition,  like  the  earth  in  seed  time. 
These  circumstances  have  imparted  to  the  French  character, 
always  highly  susceptible,  a  most  extraordinary  energy.  And 
if  any  persons,  wedded  to  a  favourite  system,  shall  please  to 
say,  that,  as  the  hope  of  liberty  is  now  extinguished,  the  French 
are  no  longer  ardent  enthusiasts,  but  reluctant  slaves,  let  them 
be  told,  that  the  ardour  for  glory  remains,  though  the  passion 
for  liberty  is  no  more.  The  people  are  now  engaged  in  a  more 
intelligible,  and,  be  it  added,  a  more  enchanting  pursuit.  They 
believe,  that  they  know  how  to  beat  their  enemies ;  and  that 
they  do  not  know  how  to  prevent  or  remedy  the  oppressions 
of  their  rulers.  It  will  be  conceded,  also,  that  the  revolution 
has  brought  forward  the  ablest  generals,  and  that  Buonaparte 
has  employed  them. 

ADMITTING,  then,  that  the  French  armies  are  numerous 
enough,  that  they  are  well  commanded,  and  that  the  soldiers 
have  the  double  advantage  of  strict  discipline  and  actual  service, 
it  is  not  easy  to  disceni  the  grounds,  on  which  the  English 
seem  so  confidently  to  rely,  that  the  French  will  be  beaten. 
The  Austrians  and  Russians  are,  no  doubt,  good  soldiers ;  not 
better,  however,  than  the  French.  It  is  to  be  feared,  the  coa 
lition  will  be  defeated  in  its  first  attempts.*  The  great  distance 
of  the  Russian  dominions,  and  the  deficiency  of  pecuniary 
means  scarcely  allow  us  to  expect,  that  Russia  will  persevere 
long,  in  a  very  unhopeful  contest.  Austria,  without  Russia, 
is  certainly  unequal  to  the  contest.  It  is  probable,  that  much 
is  expected  from  the  first  impression  of  the  arms  of  the  coa 
lesced  powers  ;  if  that  expectation  should  fail,  we  cannot  see 
any  motives  Russia  has  for  fighting  on,  campaign  after  cam 
paign,  in  case  France  should  hold  out  to  resist. 

AND  is  there  the  least  reason  to  suppose,  France  will  not  hold 
out  to  resist  many  years  ?  The  glory  of  France  is  the  cause  of 
all  Frenchmen — pity  it  is,  we  pence-saving  Americans  had  not 

*  Injustice  to  the  writer  of  these  speculations,  it  must  be  remarked,  that  they  were  pen 
ned  at  least  ten  days  before  the  report  arrived  of  the  capture  of  thirty  thousand  Austrian*. 

Note  of  the  Newspaper  Etiif*r. 


AND  FRANCE,  311 

a  small  spice  of  their  character.  They  will  suffer  much,  and 
attempt  every  thing,  sooner  than  permit  their  enemies  to 
triumph  over  them :  defeats,  by  irritating  their  vanity,  will 
rouse  their  spirit. 

WE  shall  be  told  in  reply,  it  is  only  the  splendour  of  success, 
that  attaches  the  French  to  the  fortune  of  Buonaparte.  But 
they  are  really,  in  their  inmost  souls,  proud  of  that  success. 
Besides,  let  it  be  remembered,  every  thing  that  is  now  exalted 
in  France  would  be  brought  low  again,  by  the  return  of  the 
Bourbons :  there  is  nothing  left  in  church  or  state,  that  is  not  the 
work  of  the  revolution.  The  Bourbons  might  pardon  rebels 
and  usurpers ;  but  could  they  employ  them  all,  or  trust  any  of 
them  ?  Could  they  refuse  to  employ,  or  trust  the  emigrant 
nobility,  who  have  borne  exile  and  poverty  with  them  ?  Yet 
this  must  be  refused,  or  the  nobles  and  princes  of  the  new 
order  of  things  must  step  down  again  to  the  democratick  floor. 
Probably  a  million  of  active  high-spirited  men  in  France,  now 
in  some  office,  would  hazard  life,  and,  perhaps,  scorn  it  as  a  con 
dition  of  disgrace,  sooner  than  restore  the  Bourbons. 

WHERE,  then,  is  the  reason  to  suppose,  that  France  will  not 
make  efforts,  endure  reverses,  and  even  create  another  tyrant, 
in  case  Buonaparte  should  fall  in  battle,  or  die  in  his  bed? 
Where  is  the  country  in  Europe,  that  has  so  little  to  fear  from 
division  within,  as  France  ?  as  France,  we  say,  still  smarting 
with  the  sense,  and,  in  case  of  Buonaparte's  death,  ready  to 
quake  with  the  dread,  of  the  curse  of  civil  war  ? 

THE  French  despotism,  we  greatly  fear,  will  prove  a  Colos 
sus  of  iron,  which  this  coalition  will  be  unable  to  hew  down 
with  the  sword,  or  to  lift  from  its  place.  Another  revolution, 
like  an  earthquake,  might  break  its  limbs ;  and  time  will  slowly 
corrode  it  with  rust :  in  fifty  years  it  may  be  still  hateful  to  its 
neighbours,  and  dreadful  only  to  Frenchmen.  We  have  not 
the  most  to  hope  from  the  powers,  that  are  nearest  its  own 
size  ;  but  from  that,  which  has  the  capacity  to  maintain  the 
longest  resistance  :  we  mean  England.  For  the  reasons  we 
have  before  assigned,  it  is  our  belief,  the  French  despotism  will 
never  be  more  formidable  than  it  is  now  :  if  it  should  not  finish 


312  THE  COMBINED  POWERS  % 

its  conquering  work,  while  Buonaparte  lives,  it  will  never  be 
finished.  This  is  clear,  if  it  cannot  conquer  England,  it  will 
not  conquer  the  world.  Thus  we  are  brought  to  the  question, 
so  perpetually  recurring  to  our  anxiety,  so  awfully  interesting 
to  every  civilized  nation  in  the  world,  will  France  be  able  to 
conquer  England? 

IT  is  commonly  said,  if  the  British  navy  did  not  protect  that 
island,  it  would  be  certainly  conquered.  This  is  no  part  of  our 
creed.  A  state  containing  fifteen  or  sixteen  millions  of  souls 
is  not  to  be  conquered,  unless  the  government  is  of  a  sort  to 
breed  factions,  and  one  of  them  joins  the  foreign  enemy  to 
enslave  the  state.  There  is  every  appearance,  that  the  French 
faction  in  England,  which  in  the  beginning  of  the  revolution 
was  so  clamorous  and  formidable,  is  now  equally  destitute  of 
pretext,  and  of  means  of  mischief.  If  the  British  channel 
should  be  filled  with  gravel,  and  raked,  and  hardened,,  like  a 
turnpike,  the  English  would  become  .more  military,  and  have 
to  fight  many  desperate  battles  for  their  liberty,  which,  though 
they  should  loose  those  battles,  they  would  ultimately  preserve. 
Certainly,  there  is  no  want  of  physical  force,  no  deficiency  of 
courage  to  maintain  it,  even  if  the  coast  of  Brittany  touched  the 
coast  of  Essex. 

WITH  these  opinions  it  follows,  that  the  threatened  invasion 
was  one  of  the  most  desirable  events:  it  afforded  the  only 
certain  and  near  prospect  of  the  disgrace  and  overthrow  of  the 
French  power.  If  the  coalition  really  hindered  the  invasion, 
it  has  done  England  an  injury,  which  it  will  never  repair.  But, 
as  the  attempt  was  long  delayed,  and  the  conduct  of  Austria 
and  Russia  was  so  ostentatiously  complained  of  for  hindering 
its  execution,  there  is  great  reason  to  believe,  there  was  no 
serious  intention  to  make  it. 

GREAT  BRITAIN,  now,  can  expect  no  such  hopeful  oppor 
tunity  to  cripple  her  adversary,  as  long  as  the  coalition  lasts : 
her  hopes  are  rested  on  the  military  operations  of  the  coalesced 
powers.  This  is  one  of  the  serious  evils  of  that  coalition. 
Englishmen  are,  unhappily,  made  to  depend  on  the  efforts  of 
Russians  and  Austrians,  which  we  apprehend  (and  we  huve 
taken  some  pains  to  explain  the  grounds  of  our  apprehensions) 


AND  FRANCE.  313 

will  ultimately  fail  of  their  object.  They  depend  too  much  on 
others,  too  little  on  themselves.  Should  Russia  find  some 
ambitious  reasons  for  deserting  the  alliance,  Austria  must  be 
come  a  vassal  of  France.  England  must  then  face  her  adver 
sary  alone,  with  his  insolence  and  means  augmented,  and  weari 
ness  and  despair  pervading  every  English  heart.  Then,  per 
haps,  she  would  think  herself  obliged  to  make  peace.  Thus 
the  tired  traveller,  benumbed  with  cold,  grows  drowsy  and  sits 
down  to  rest — .he  sleeps,  to  wake  no  more.  England  would  be 
more  certainly  ruined  by  peace,  than  Buonaparte  by  the  inva 
sion.  If,  instead  of  using  her  arms,  she  trusts  a  second  time 
to  her  .enemy's  moderation,  he  will  never  permit  her  to  resume 
them.  A  peace  by  England,  after  the  defeat  of  the  new  coali 
tion,  will  give  to  France,  an  unlimited  command  of  means  of 
every  sort.  The  Persian  kings  did  not  encourage  commerce, 
but  the  Phoenicians,  Rhodians,  and  people  of  Cyprus  did,  and, 
of  course,  the  king  of  Persia  could  command  the  sea.  Tribu 
tary  Europe  would  furnish  treasure  to  build  fleets  ;  and  the 
whole  coast  from  the  Baltick  to  the  Adriatick  would  supply 
seamen.  We  Americans  are  already  advised  to  interdict  the 
manufactures  of  England  ;  and  France  will  oblige  every  other 
country  to  do  it.  While  the  war  lasts,  necessity  is  stronger 
than  even  French  despotism  :  all  Europe,  and  even  France 
herself,  consumes  British  goods ;  but  peace  would  restore  to 
Buonaparte  the  power  to  shut  all  the  ports  of  Europe  against 
England. 

WHAT,  then,  are  we  to  think  of  the  coalition,  as  it  affects 
England,  but  that  it  will  deceive  her  hopes  and  aggravate  her 
embarrassments  ?  Standing  alone,  and  depending  solely  on  her 
self,  she  is  invincible.  It  is  in  her  power  without  any  material 
diminution  of  her  wealth,  and  with  a  diminished  hazard  of  her 
safety,  to  fight  France,  till  French  despotism  becomes  wasted 
with  its  vices  and  decrepid  with  age ;  till  it  loses  much  of  its 
impetuosity,  and  employs  half  its  force  in  cjuelling  insurrec 
tions  ;  till  the  legion  of  honour  shall  create  one  emperour,  the 
army  of  the  Rhine  a  second,  and  the  army  of  Italy  a  third. 
40 


.    &    314    3 

THE  SUCCESSES  OF  BUONAPARTE. 

First  published  in  the  Repcttonj,  Manh,  1806. 

A  II E  rapid  and  decisive  successes  of  Buonaparte  have  infla 
ted  the  ignorant  rabble  of  our  democrats  with  admiration,  and 
iilled  every  reflecting-  mind  with  astonishment  and  terrour. 
The  means,  that  most  men  deemed  adequate  to  the  reduction 
of  his  power,  have  failed  of  their  effect,  and  have  gone  to  swell 
the  Colossal  mass  that  oppresses  Europe  :  his  foes  are  become 
his  satellites.  Austria,  the  German  states,  Prussia,  Naples, 
and  perhaps  Sweden,  seem  to  have  been  fated,  like  comets,  to 
a  shock  with  the  sun,  not  to  thrust  him  from  his  orb,  but  to 
supply  his  waste  of  elemental  fire.  Buonaparte  not  only  sees 
the  prowess  of  Europe  at  his  feet,  but  all  its  force  and  treasure 
in  his  hands.  We  except  Russia  and  England.  But  Russia 
is  one  of  those  comets  on  its  excursion  into  the  void  regions 
of  space,  and  is  already  dim  in  the  political  sky  ;  England  pas 
ses,  like  Mercury,  a  dark  spot  over  the  sun's  disk  ;  and  to  Buon 
aparte  himself,  she  seems,  like  the  moon,  to  intercept  his 
rays.  He  cannot  endure  to  see  her  so  near  his  splendour, 
without  being  dazzled  or  consumed  by  it. 

HE  wants  nothing  but  the  British  navy,  to  realize  the  most 
extravagant  schemes  of  his  ambition.  A  war,  that  should 
give  him  possession  of  it,  or  a  peace,  like  the  last,  that  should 
humble  England,  and  withdraw  her  navy  from  any  further 
opposition  to  his  arms,  would  give  the  civilized  world  a  mas 
ter.  All  the  French,  and,  of  course,  all  our  loyal  democrats 
have  affected  to  treat  that  apprehension  as  chimerical.  Yet 
who,  even  among  those  whom  faction  has  made  blind,  could 
refuse  to  see,  that  the  transfer  of  the  British  navy  to  France, 
would  irreversibly  fix  the  long-depending  destiny  of  mankind, 
to  bear  the  weight  and  ignominy  of  a  new  Roman  domi 
nation. 

WE  may  say  the  aggravated  weight,  for  Rome  preserved 
her  morals,  till  she  had  achieved  her  conquests  ;  France  be- 


BUOXAPARTE'S  SUCCESSES.  315 

gins  her  career,  as  deeply  corrupt  as  Rome  ended  it.  The 
Roman  republick,  after  having  grown  to  a  gigantick  stature 
from  its  soundness,  rotted  when  it  died ;  but  that  of  France, 
surviving  the  principles,  and  at  length  the  name  of  a  repub 
lick,  has  drawn  aliment  from  disease,  and  we  of  this  genera 
tion  have  seen  it  crawl,  like  some  portentous  serpent  from  a 
tomb,  glistening  and  bloated  with  venom  from  its  loathsome 
banquet.  France  has  owed  the  progress  of  her  arms  to  the 
prevalence  of  her  vices.  These  were  the  causes  of  the  revo 
lution  ;  and  the  revolution  has,  in  turn,  made  these  the  instru 
ments  of  French  aggrandizement.  By  the  persecution  of  all 
that  was  virtue,  the  leaders  gave  encouragement  to  all  that 
was  vice  ;  and,  thus,  they  not  only  acquired  the  power  to  spend 
the  nation's  last  shilling,  but  imparted  to  the  rabble  all  the 
ardour  of  enthusiasm,  and  all  the  energies,  that  the  love  of 
novelty,  of  plunder,  and  of  vengeance  could  inspire.  The 
means  they  commanded  were  not  such  as  arise  from  the  just 
and  orderly  government  of  a  state,  but  from  its  dissolution. 
The  priests,  the  rich,  and  the  nobles,  were  offered  as  human 
sacrifices  on  the  altar  of  the  revolution,  and  still  more  emphati 
cally  of  French  ambition. 

THUS  France,  like  Polypheme  in  his  cave,  grew  fat  with 
carnage.  Other  states  could  not,  without  submitting  to  a  like 
revolution,  oppose  her  with  equal  arms.  So  far  from  it,  they 
found,  that  all  those,  whom  vice  and  want  had  made  the  ene 
mies  of  the  laws  of  their  country,  were  banded  together  as  the 
friends  of  France. 

THUS  it  was,  that  the  French  armies  no  sooner  entered 
Italy,  than  they  arrayed  in  arms  an  Italian  rabble,  to  hold  all 
those,  who  had  any  thing  to  lose,  in  fear  and  inactivity,  till 
they  could  be  regularly  plundered.  The  leaders  of  this  rab 
ble  were  invested  with  the  mock  dignities  of  the  Cisalpine 
government.  The  like  was  done  in  Holland  and  Switzer 
land. 

THE  new  yoke,  therefore,  which  the  abject  nations  are  so 
near  taking  on  their  necks,  cannot  be  light.  That  France 
may  rule  every  where,  the  worst  of  men  must  be  permitted 


316  BUONAPARTE'S  SUCCESSES. 

every  where  to  rule  in  the  worst  of  ways.  The  Roman  yoke 
was  iron,  and  it  crushed,  as  well  as  wearied  the  provinces ; 
but  the  domination  of  culprits  and  outlaws,  claiming  much  for 
themselves,  and  exacting  more  for  their  masters  in  France, 
will  place  the  people  between  the  upper  and  the  nether  mill 
stone. 

IF  the  miserable  dupes  of  France,  so  loyal  to  the  commands 
of  her  envoy,  can  wish  destruction  to  the  British  navy,  and 
can  really  think  American  liberty  the  safer  for  its  future 
tenure  by  the  good  pleasure  of  Buonaparte,  such  men  are  cer 
tainly  fitter  subjects  for  medicine  than  argument :  where  such 
sentiments  do  not  spring  from  the  rottenness  of  the  heart, 
they  must  escape  through  some  crack  in  the  brain. 

THERE  was  a  time,  when  the  infatuation  in  favour  of  France 
was  a  popular  malady.  If  that  time  has  so  far  passed  over, 
that  men  can  either  think  or  feel  as  Americans  ought,  it  must 
be  apparent,  that  Buonaparte  wants  but  little,  and  is  enraged 
that  he  so  long  wants  that  little,  to  be  the  world's  master. 
Yet,  at  this  awful  crisis,  when  the  British  navy  alone  prevents 
his  final  success,  we  of  the  United  States  come  forward,  with 
an  ostentation  of  hostility  to  England,  to  annoy  her  with  non- 
intercourse  laws.  Are  we  determined  to  leave  nothing  to 
chance,  but  to  volunteer  our  industry  in  forging  our  chains  ? 


C  sir  3 


DANGEROUS  POWER  OF  FRANCE.  N°.  1. 

First  pubhslicd  in  t/ie  Rc/iertory,  May,  1806. 

A  H  E  political  sky  has  seldom  remained  long  unclouded ; 
but  it  may  be  doubted,  whether  it  was  ever  charged  with  a 
blacker  tempest,  than  that  we  have  lately  seen  burst  upon  Eu 
rope.  France  has  accomplished,  in  twelve  years,  as  much  as 
Rome  did  in  five  hundred.  The  Samnites,  who  occupied  a 
little  province,  that  is  now  a  part  of  the  kingdom  of  Naples, 
resisted  the  Roman  arms  for  half  a  century  ;  and  it  was  not  till 
after  four  and  twenty  Roman  triumphs,  and  twice  that  number 
of  pitched  battles,  that  they  were  subdued. 

KING  Pyrrhus  landed  in  Italy  too  late,  after  the  Samnites 
had  lost  their  spirit  no  less  than  their  force.  He  proved  an 
enemy  worthy  of  Roman  discipline  and  courage,  yet  he  was 
unsuccessful. 

THE  Romans,  after  five  hundred  years  of  incessant  war  with 
the  petty  nations  around  them,  at  length  aspired  to  extend 
their  dominion  beyond  the  bounds  of  Italy.  First  Sicily  and 
then  Spain  were  disputed,  in  arms,  M'ith  the  Carthaginians. 
Fifty  years  were  passed  in  battles  and  alarms,  before  this  great 
controversy  was  decided  in  favour  of  Rome. 

WHEN  Carthage  had  fallen,  Greece,  the  mistress  of  Rome 
in  arts,  her  rival  in  arms  and  renown,  fell  an  almost  unresist 
ing  prey  to  Roman  ambition.  She  fell  witn  all  her  confederated 
republicks,  a*  ours  will  certainly  fall,  if  France  should  continue 
to  wield  our  factions,  and  our  factions  to  dispose' of  our  govern 
ment  ;  for  factions  in  a  democracy  are  sincere  only  in  their 
hatred  arid  fear  of  each  other.  Whether  the  Jeffersons  and 
Madisons  stand  or  fall,  our  rulers  can  have  no  patriotism. 
Their  emulation  is  too  fierce,  and  their  objects  of  ambition  too 
fugitive,  and  too  personal,  to  allow  them  to  take  the  views,  still 
less  to  cherish  the  sentiments  of  statesmen.  Old  Rome  had 


318  DANGEROUS  POWER 

patriots,  but  \vho  would  expect  to  find  them  in  the  amphi 
theatre  among  the  gladiators  ?  Those  who  love  power,  will 
seek  it  in  the  contests  of  party.  The  lovers  of  their  country 
will  be  found,  nursing  their  griefs  and  their  despair,  among 
the  discarded  disciples  of  Washington.  To  return  from  this 
seeming  digression,  Rome  availed  herself  of  the  divisions  of 
the  Grecian  republicks  to  subjugate  them  all.  Affecting  a 
zeal  for  their  liberty,  she  offered  her  alliance  ;  and  the  allies  of 
Rome,  like  those  of  France,  were  her  SLAVES.  The  Greeks 
joyfully  aided  Rome  to  conquer  Macedonia ;  and  Philip,  the 
Macedonian  king,  was  employed  against  Antiochus,  called  the 
great,  the  Syrian  monarch.  Egypt  was  too  base  to  make  any 
resistance,  but  submitted  to  tribute,  as  quietly  as  we  do. 

THUS,  every  independent  republickand  powerful  prince  fell 
a  prey  to  Rome.  Beyond  the  Euphrates,  the  Parthians,  at 
length,  formed  a  mighty  empire,  which  the  distance  and  the 
deserts  rendered,  like  the  modern  Russia,  inaccessible  to  the 
Roman  arms.  It  was  remarkable,  that  Rome  seldom  had  more 
than  one  enemy  to  fight  at  a  time  :  they  fell  in  succession  ; 
and  their  servitude  was  concealed,  though  it  was  embittered 
by  the  title  of  allies. 

TRANCE  has  achieved  her  purpose — the  struggles  of  liberty 
are  over  ;  and  the  continental  nations  of  Europe  are  now  sleep 
ing  in  their  chains. 

IF  France  possessed  the  British  navy,  those  chains  would  be 
adamant,  which  no  human  force  could  break.  French  tyranny, 
like  the  great  dragon,  would  have  wings,  and  the  remotest 
regions  of  the  civilized  world  would  be  near  enough  to  catch 
pestilence  from  his  breath.  Yet  we  are  infatuated  enough  to 
think  America  a  hiding  place  for  liberty,  where  her  assassins 
will  not  seek  her  life  ;  or  an  impregnable  fortress  that  would 
protect  it. 

ON  what  reasonable  foundation  do  these  presumptuous  ex 
pectations  rest  ?  When  France  is  master  of  "both  land  and  sea, 
will  distance  preserve  us  ?  With  eight  hundred  ships  in  the 
department  of  the  Thames,  distance  would  be  nothing  to  Buo 
naparte.  He  could  transport  an  army  of  sixty  thousand  men 


OF  FRANCE.  319 

to  occupy  New-York,  which  could  not  make  one  hour's  resist 
ance.  He  could  transport  them  with  more  expedition  and  ease, 
than  Mr.  Jefferson  could  assemble  our  STANDING  ARMY  of 
two  regiments  from  the  frontiers,  to  oppose  them.  Yet  this 
standing  army-,  so  potent  to  command  the  types,  the  exclama 
tions,  and  the  silly  fears  of  the  democrats,  though  it  assisted  as 
a  bug-bear  to  make  Mr.  Jefferson  president,  would  no  better 
protect  his  house,  at  Monticello,  from  a  French  squadron  of 
horse,  than  the  army  of  the  imperial  Virginia  formerly  defend 
ed  its  assembly  from  colonel  Tarleton. 

BUT  our  myriads  of  militia  might  defy  the  world  in  arms. 
Excellent  hopes  these  !  When  Austria,  in  vain,  opposes  two 
hundred  thousand  veterans  to  the  progress  of  Buonaparte  ; 
when  Russia  is  repelled  in  the  pitched  battle  of  Austerlitz  ; 
when  Prussia,  with  its  armies  complete  in  numbers  and  dis 
cipline,  stands  still,  not  daring  to  stir,  and  waiting  to  acknow 
ledge  Buonaparte  conqueror ;  or,  to  come  more  plainly  to  the 
point,  when  we  see  half  a  million  of  English  volunteers,  as  for 
midable  and  as  stiff,  in  buckram,  as  it  is  in  the  power  of  tailors  to 
make  uniforms,  parading  the  coasts  of  Sussex,  Essex,  and  Kent, 
and  yet  trusting  only  to  the  vigilance  of  the  British  navy  to  hinder 
the  French  from  crossing  the  channel ;  surely,  when  we  see 
these  things,  we  must  be  unwilling  to  reflect,  or  utterly  incapa 
ble  of  reflection,  if  we  can  suppose,  that  the  array  of  the  militia 
in  the  secretary's  office  would  transplant  fear  from  Mr.  Jeffer 
son's  bosom  into  Buonaparte's. 

To  say  nothing  of  the  improbability  of  the  militia's  obeying 
the  call  for  actual  service,  or,  if  they  should  appear  promptly 
and  in  sufficient  numbers,  of  the  impossibility  of  detaining 
them  in  service  long  enough  to  make  their  arms  of  the  least 
imaginable  use,  direful  experience  has  at  length  instructed 
nations,  that,  when  they  are  in  danger,  they  are  to  be  preserved 
from  it  by  their  real  soldiers.  These  are  made,  not  in  a  tailor's 
shop,  by  facing  blue  cloth  with  red  or  yellow,  but  by  learning 
in  the  field  that  subordination  of  mind,  that  will  make  men  do, 
and  insure  their  doing  all  that  men  possibly  can  d». 


320  DANGEROUS  POWER 

OLD  Rome  did  not  out-number  her  enemies.  Two  legions, 
each  of  less  than  six  thousand  men,  and  as  many  of  the  Latin 
or  other  Italian  allies  made  a  complete  consular  army.  Such 
an  army  routed  the  numberless  forces  of  Mithridates  and  An- 
tiochus.  It  cost  the  Romans  more  exertions  to  subdue  Perseus, 
king  of  Macedon,  than  to  conquer  all  the  East :  his  phalanx,  of 
sixteen  thousand  men,  was  harder  to  break  than  all  .the  millions 
of  militia  of  the  other  successors  of  Alexander.  Rome,  by  the 
perfection  of  her  discipline,  became  mistress  of  the  world. 

WOULD  Buonaparte  calculate  on  the  vigour  of  our  govern 
ment,  as  an  insuperable  obstacle  to  his  military  attempt  on  the 
United  States  ?  Would  the  congress  majority,  like  a  Roman 
senate,  create  means  and  employ  them,  with  a  spirit  that  would 
prefer  death  to  servitude  or  tribute  ?  The  French  Hannibal, 
surely,  with  our  fifteen  millions  of  tribute  money  already  in 
his  treasury,  would  have  no  discouraging  fear  of  this  sort. 
When  he  reads  our  treaty  with  Tripoli,  by  which  it  appears, 
that  we  chose  tribute,  when  victory  was  within  our  reach  ;  when 
he  sees  that  the  bey  of  Tunis  presumes  to  say,  by  his  minis 
ter  at  Washington,  pay  or  fight,  what  can  Buonaparte  conclude, 
but  that  honour  is  a  name,  and  in  America  an  empty  one ;  and 
that  our  national  spirit  can  never  be  roused  to  a  higher  pitch, 
than  to  make  a  calculation.  With  us  honour  is  a  coin,  whose 
very  baseness  confines  it  at  home  for  a  currency.  Such  a  peo 
ple,  he  will  say,  are  degraded,  before  they  are  subdued.  They 
are  too  abject  to  be  classed  or  employed  among  my  martial 
slaves.  Let  them  toil  to  feed  their  masters,  and  to  replenish 
my  treasury  with  tribute. 

Is  there  a  spirit  in  our  people,  that  would  supply  the  want 
of  it  in  our  rulers  ?  Our  total  impreparedness,  both  by  land  and 
sea,  to  make  even  the  shew  of  resistance  against  an  attack,  is, 
certainly,  not  from  the  want  of  military  means  in  the  United 
Stales,  but  from  a  dread  of  the  loss  of  popularity,  if  they  should 
call  them  forth. 

WHY  is  it  unpopular  ?  Because  the  progress  of  French, 
domination  is  not  seen  at  all,  or  is  seen  with  a  fatal  compla 
cency  ;  because  we  love  our  money  better  than  our  country ; 


OF  FRANCE.  321 

because  we  enjoy  our  ease  almost  as  much  as  we  love  our 
money ;  and  because,  by  shutting  our  eyes  to  our  publick 
dangers,  we  escape  the  insupportable  terrour  of  their  approach, 
and  the  toils  of  an  efficient  preparation  to  resist  them. 

IT  is  a  thing  incomprehensible,  that  even  the  childish  bab 
ble  of  the  Chronicle  is  not  dumb.  Admitting  the  stupidity, 
admitting  the  baseness  of  the  democrats,  yet,  without  admit 
ting  that  they  are  both  stupid  and  base  in  a  miraculous  degree, 
it  is  unaccountable,  that  they  should  not  see,  in  the  victories  of 
Buonaparte,  the  stride,  and  almost  feel  the  gripe  of  a  master. 
If  a  storm  should  sink,  or  a  fire-ship  burn  the  British  navy, 
we  should  feel  that  gripe  in  a  month :  general  Turreau  would 
quietly  exercise  all  the  authorities  at  Washington.  Consider 
ing  how  tamely  we  give  up  our  millions,  while  that  navy  still 
renders  America  inaccessible  to  France,  is  any  man  alive  so 
absurd  as  to  suppose,  that  our  subjugation  to  French  despotism 
would  cost  the  great  nation  a  single  flask  of  powder  ?  Take 
away  the  British  navy,  or  give  it  to  France,  and  we  free  Ame 
ricans,  so  valiant  of  tongue,  tie  up  in  our  stalls,  as  tamely  as 
our  oxen.  The  pen  of  Talleyrand  would  be  found  a  sharper 
weapon  than  general  ***'s  sword.  It  is  preposterous  to  suppose, 
that  a  military  resistance  to  France  would  be  attempted.  Her 
faction  in  this  country  would  revive  the  clubs  and  the  maxims 
of  1794;  and  Genet  would  again  summon  the  enemies  of 
British  influence  to  rally  under  his  banner.  We  should  be 
called  the  allies  of  France,  and  our  loyal  addresses  would  ac 
company  our  tribute  to  conciliate  the  friendship  of  the  great 
nation,  and  to  claim  a  share  in  its  glories.  The  men,  who 
could  be  nothing  without  France,  would  be  invested  with  the 
titles  and  powers  of  magistracy ;  and  property  would  be  made 
to  shift  hands,  till  it  rested  with  those,  who  would  be  really 
interested  to  support  France,  that  France  might  support  them 
in  keeping  it.  Thus,  she  would  avoid  the  odium  of  a  violent 
revolution,  and  yet  would  reap  all  the  advantage  of  it,  to  rivet 
our  dependence  on  her  power.  The  distance  of  the  Roman 
provinces,  at  length,  favoured  their  emancipation  from  her 
41 


322  DANGEROUS  POWER 

yoke ;  but  with  the  sole  possession  of  a  navy,  the  trans- Atlantick 
provinces  of  France  would  not  be  distant. 

WITH  these  irrefragable  proofs  of  the  fatal  certainty,  with 
which  the  power  of  France  would  reach  us,  and  of  the  unre 
sisting  tameness,  Avith  which  we  should  endure  it,  if  France 
should  ruin  the  British  naval  power,  what  comments  shall  we 
make  on  the  sense  or  spirit  of  the  non-importation  project  of 
congress,  which,  though  ineffectual  for  its  purpose,  is  intended 
to  impair  the  force  and  resources  of  that  .navy  ?  How  deep 
and  considerate  will  be  our  scorn  and  execration  of  the  Arm 
strongs,  and  Livingstons,  and  Munroes,  who,  to  make  their 
flattery  welcome  to  a  tyrant's  ear,  have  blended  it  with  Ameri 
can  invectives  against  that  navy.  We  seem  to  be  emulous  of 
the  spirit  of  slavery,  before  we  descend  to  its  condition  ;  as  if 
we  were  resolved  to  merit  their  contempt,  by  an  earlier  claim, 
and  even  by  a  juster  title,  than  their  yoke  ;  for,  as  long  as  the 
British  navy  may  triumph,  that  yoke  is  not  inevitable. 

THE  most  successful  way  to  prevent  our  servitude,  is  faith 
fully  to  expose  our  dangers.  So  far  as  our  fate  may  depend 
on  our  wisdom  or  our  choice,  it  is  proper  to  call  the  attention 
of  our  citizens  to  the  fact,  that  Buonaparte,  though  he  has 
done  much,  has  done  it  in  vain,  unless  he  can  do  one  thing 
more.  Give  him  the  British"  navy,  and  he  will  govern  the 
United  States  as  absolutely,  and,  certainly,  with  as  little  mercy, 
us  if  our  territory  were  a  French  department,  and  actually  lay 
between  the  Seine  and  the  Loire.  Let  our  scribblers,  then, 
extol  the  long-foreseeing  wisdom  of  the  Jeffersonian  adminis 
tration.  Let  them  boast  of  their  devotedness  to  the  cause  of 
the  people.  The  man,  whose  chief  merit  is  grounded  on  his 
having  penned  the  declaration  of  independence,  has  done  more 
than  any  other  man  living  to  undo  it.  He  has  made  conven 
tions  to  pour  the  fulness  of  our  treasury  into  the  coffers  of 
Buonaparte  ;  he  has  dictated  laws  in  aid  of,  and  to  carry  into 
effect,  French  authority  over  the  blacks  of  St.  Domingo — a 
degree  of  servile  condescension  beneath  the  independent  spirit 
of  those  blacks  ;  and  now  his  minions  in  congress  have  begun 
a  warfare  against  the  British  trade,  as  if,  without  our  own 


OF  FRANCE.  323 

active  co-operation  to  cripple  the  maritime  resources  of  Eng 
land,  Buonaparte  might  meet  with  too  great  obstruction  and 
delay  in  subverting  the  independence  and  liberty  of  our 
country. 

IF  we  love  our  country  as  we  ought,  we  cannot  but  wish, 
that  the  conquered  nations  of  Europe  may  break  their  chains  ; 
we  cannot  but  wish,  that  Great  Britain  may  courageously  and 
triumphantly  maintain  her  independence  against  France.  But 
on  this  point  what  are  we  to  expect  ?  A  military  opposition  on 
the  continent  of  Europe  has  proved  unavailing.  Will  France, 
now  mistress  of  the  land,  become  mistress  of  the  sea  also, 
and  establish  her  iron  domination  over  the  civilized  world  ? 
This  is'a  question  of  life  or  death  to  American  independence, 
and  the  awful  decision  is  near. 


DANGEROUS  POWER  OF  FRANCE, 
N°.  II. 

IT  is  a  subject  of  fearful  curiosity,  to  inquire  into  the  causes, 
which  have  so  rapidly  conducted  France  to  the  conquest  of  the 
continental  part  of  Europe.  By  carefully  tracing  their  opera 
tion,  we  may  be  the  better  enabled  to  calculate  the  chances  of 
her  triumph  over  England,  and,  of  necessary  consequence, 
over  America. 

IT  was  a  long  time  the  fashion,  to  ascribe  French  victories 
to  the  republican  fanaticism  of  her  citizens.  When  France 
ceased  to  be  republican  in  name,  and  it  was  only  in  name  that 
she  ever  was  republican,  the  superiour  personal  bravery  of  the 
French  soldiers,  and  the  superiour  genius  of  Buonaparte  were 
deemed  to  be  the  two  adequate  causes  of  her  triumphs. 

THERE  is,  probably,  little  ground  for  these  opinions  ;  or  the 
influence  of  these  causes  is  much  over-rated.  The  body  of 
American  democrats  are,  no  doubt,  the  greatest  political 
bigots  in  the  universe :  they  are  accustomed  to  believe,  that 


324  DANGEROUS  POWER 

no  tenets  can  be  true  or  wise,  but  their  own.  That  all  power 
is  derived  from  the  people,  and  should  be  exercised  for  their 
benefit,  is  a  principle,  of  which  they  fancy  the  world  was 
ignorant,  till  it  was  discovered  in  the  course  of  our  revolution. 
Considering  themselves  the  sole  depositaries  of  political  truth  ; 
having  in  their  hands  her  casket,  where  she  keeps  liberty,  the 
most  precious  of  her  jewels,  they  think  our  country  is  entitled 
to  be  not  a  little  vain  of  the  office.  They  feel,  too,  as  if  all 
patriotick  merit  consists  in  propagating  their  principles  through 
the  world  with  a  rage  of  proselytism.  They  would  rejoice,  if 
not  only  France,  but  the  grand  Turk,  arid  the  dey  of  Algiers 
should  gather  their  unlettered  rabble  into  primary  assemblies, 
and  make  them  swear,  with  all  the  zeal  and  sincerity  of  opium 
and  brandy,  to  maintain  the  rights  of  man  with  their  daggers 
and  their  pikes. 

ACCORDINGLY,  when  France  said,  and  sung,  and  swore  the 
words  of  their  republican  creed,  they  were  sure  the  grovelling 
world  was  very  near  being  hoisted  from  its  centre  :  it  would 
be  launched  into  the  sky,  and  glitter  among  the  brightest  of 
the  stars.  The  reign  of  perfectibility  was  beginning  :  man,  so 
long  a  reptile,  trodden  in  the  mire,  was  rising  to  over-top  the 
tallest  of  the  seraphs.  Their  teeming  fancies  had  made  a 
creation  of  their  own,  and  lighted  it  with  a  new  sunshine. 
Above  all  things,  it  delighted  their  hearts,  and  seemed  to 
realize  all  their  hopes,  to  see  the  low  vulgar,  the  squalid  hosts 
of  vice  and  ignorance,  issue  from  the  opening  cellars  of  the 
Fauxbourg  of  St.  Antoine,  and  from  the  jails,  to  exercise  the 
sovereignty  of  the  fieojile,  by  a  signal  vengeance  on  the  magis 
trates,  their  enemies.  They  were  sure  the  structure  of  society 
must  have  risen,  when  they  saw  its  low  foundations  already 
higher  than  its  roof.  It  was  not  long,  before  this  rabble  army 
was  arrayed  as  a  body  of  Marseilles  patriots,  and  as  a  part  of 
the  national  guards.  The  splendid  virtues  of  France  were 
attributed  to  the  exalted  heroism  of  these  men,  who,  it  was 
said,  fought  well,  not  because  they  were  soldiers,  but  because 
they  were  citizens.  More  than  a  million  of  the  grown  people 
of  America  believed,  that  the  liberty-loving  passion  of  French- 


OF  FRANCE.  325 

men  made  them  an  overmatch  for  the  disciplined  mercenaries 
of  Austria  and  Prussia ;  and  that  the  citizens  were  the  better 
for  their  ignorance  of  discipline.  The  French  generals  were 
not  the  dupes  of  our  silly  opinions  :  they  drilled  and  jiunished 
their  citizens,  till  they  would  stand  fire  and  push  bayonet ;  and 
if  they  would  not,  they  shot  them. 

THE  notion,  that  the  political  opinions  of  the  common  men 
will  make  them  any  better  soldiers,  is  strangely  absurd  :  they 
are  more  likely  to  effect  a  mutiny,  than  a  triumph.  Men  may 
fancy  they  are  soldiers  ;  but  they  are  not  really  such,  until  dis 
cipline  and  habit  have  new-moulded  their  thoughts  and  incli 
nations.  The  reviews  of  peaceable  tradesmen  are  no  more, 
than  the  solemn  foppery  of  a  pantomime,  acted  in  the  open  air, 
instead  of  the  theatre.  We  would  not  be  understood  to  say, 
that  the  militia  has  not  both  its  merit  and  its  use — both,  we 
confess,  are  great ;  but  we  do  say,  that  their  proper  use  is  not 
to  face  a  veteran  enemy.  It  is,  indeed,  very  possible,  that  poli 
tical  enthusiasm,  as  well  as  religious  fanaticism,  may  inspire 
a  sudden  fury  into  the  bosoms  of  a  raw,  undisciplined  multi 
tude  ;  but  a  veteran  corps  would,  surely,  defeat  such  a  multi 
tude. 

IF  the  inhabitants  of  France  ever  felt  the  republican  enthu 
siasm,  which  is,  indeed,  very  .uestionable,  there  is  not  much 
reason  to  believe,  that  it  contributed  to  fill  the  ranks  of  their 
own  army,  or  to  make  those  of  their  enemy  give  way.  Expe 
rience,  which  brings  plausible  theories  to  the  test,  and  a  correct 
knowledge  of  human  nature,  have  abundantly  confuted  the 
notion,  that  the  common  men  are  the  better  soldiers  for  the 
soundness  of  their  logick  or  their  politicks.  Men  are  very 
much  alike,  in  all  the  European  countries,  in  -respect  to  their 
capacity  of  being  trained  for  war.  When  so  trained,  the  dif 
ference  between  two  hostile  armies,  of  equal  numbers,  will 
be  found  to  lie  in  the  talents  of  their  subaltern  officers  and  prin 
cipal  commanders. 

COMMON  soldiers  are  soon  trained  ;  but  it  is  the  work  of  art 
and  time,  to  form  officers.  There  is  not  the  least  reason  in 
the  world  to  suppose,  that  the  Austrians  or  Russians  are  infe- 


326  DANGEROUS  POWER 

riour  to  the  French  soldiers  in  steady,  persevering  valour ; 
but  there  is  ample  evidence  of  the  superiority  of  the  French 
officers  over  those  of  their  enemies.  War  has  become,  indeed 
it  ever  was,  among  civilized  nations,  a  science.  It  excites  and 
employs  the  utmost  vigour  and  extent  of  human  intellect. 
Though  it  is  a  science,  it  is  such  only  for  the  officers,  not  for 
the  common  men.  For  two  centuries  past,  France  has  devoted 
more  attention  and  more  money  to  the  perfection  of  this  science, 
than  all  the  rest  of  Europe.  Louis  XIV.  established  such 
military  schools,  as  the  great  Cyrus  would  have  desired  for  the 
education  of  the  officers  of  that  army,  that  achieved  for  him 
the  conquest  of  Asia.  Buonaparte  and  Moreau,  both  undoubt 
edly  great  generals,  are  indebted  for  their  triumphs  to  these 
schools.  It  is  often  said,  the  common  men  will  dare  to  do, 
whatever  their  officers  will  lead  them  on  to  do.  It  is  no  less 
proper  to  say,  the  officers  will  seldom  flinch  from  leading  the 
men,  if  they  but  know  how  to  lead  them. 

NOTHING  is  more  certain,  than  that  the  military  institutions 
of  France  supplied  the  first  revolutionary  armies  with  an  infi 
nite  number  of  accomplished  young  officers,  who  glowed  with 
impatience  to  gain  glory  and  promotion  in  that  profession, 
which  had,  from  their  infancy,  engrossed  their  thoughts  and 
kindled  all  their  passions.  The  revolution  furnished  only 
sparks,  and  not  the  fuel  for  their  combustion. 

NOR  is  there  the  least  reason  to  pretend,  that  the  first  French 
armies  were  composed  of  raw  recruits.  An  immense  standing 
army  was  maintained :  and  when  it  is  considered,  that,  on  the 
side  of  the  Low  Countries,  and  on  the  Rhine,  France  guarded 
what  has  been  emphatically  called  her  iron  frontier,  with  a 
double  row  of  fortified  towns,  and  that  every  one  of  these  was 
occupied  by  a  veteran  garrison,  that  would  figure  as  a  respec 
table  American  army,  we  see  plainly,  that  France  possessed 
every  advantage  for  success  in  war,  from  the  very  first  day  of 
her  military  operations. 

THE  democrats,  to  a  man,  believe,  that  France  was  entirely 
defenceless,  when  the  "  coalition  of  desfiots"  secretly  entered 
into  the  treaties  of  Pilnitz  and  Pavia  for  her  dismemberment. 


OF  FRANCE.  327 

Those  treaties,  it  has  been  a  thousand  times  proved,  are  forge 
ries.  Austria  was  taken  by  surprise  :  the  emperour  Joseph 
had  levelled  the  ramparts  of  his  towns  in  the  Netherlands, 
Luxembourg  excepted  ;  and  his  troops  in  that  country  were  no 
more  than  a  feeble  corps  of  observation.  The  Austrians  had 
a  larger  proportion  of  raw  recruits  in  their  armies,  than  the 
French. 

BE  it  remembered,  too,  that  the  revolution  supplied  the 
French  with  an  unexhausted  superfluity  of  men  and  means, 
that  no  regular  government  in  the  world  could  countervail. 
That  man  must  be  strangely  disordered  in  mind,  who  can  now 
look  back  on  French  affairs,  and  say,  that  the  revolutionary 
leaders,  possessing  such  means,  left  any  option  to  the  govern 
ments  of  England  or  Austria  to  remain  at  peace.  As  well 
might  they  say,  when  a  whole  street  is  burning,  that  a  man, 
by  sitting  calm  in  his  elbow  chair,  might  save  his  house  from 
the  flames.  The  English  government,  in  particular,  was  near 
the  scene,  and  could  not  see  the  revolution,  like  Etna,  vomit 
fire,  without  some  natural  fears  and  some  prudent  measures 
of  precaution.  Who  is  now  ignorant,  that  Brissot,  and  Barras, 
and  Danton,  and  Robespiere  would  choose  to  understand  those 
fears  and  those  precautions,  as  signs  of  the  inveterate  hostility 
of  kings  to  the  French  liberty.  If  the  English  could  have 
shunned  the  war  in  February  1793,  it  would  have  been  forced 
upon  them  before  June. 

IT  is  childish  prattle,  to  charge  the  enemies  of  France  with 
the  commencement  of  the  war.  The  nature  of  the  revolution 
was  war  against  mankind.  Its  vital  principle  was  a  burning 
passion  for  power,  within  the  state ;  and,  when  they  had  gained 
that,  to  establish  by  arms  the  power  of  France  over  every  other 
state.  Why  is  the  vulture  carnivorous  ?  Why  does  not  the 
tiger  of  Bengal  eat  grass?  We  might,  with  as  much  good 
sense,  inquire,  why  does  not  the  torrent  stay  upon  the  hills  ? 
Why  are  the  collected  waters  of  the  revolutionary  storm  pre 
cipitated  from  the  height  of  the  Alps,  to  desolate  the  plains, 
and  to  bury  men,  and  their  labours,  under  masses  of  barrenness 
and  ruin  ? 


328  DANGEROUS  POWER 

THE  military  means  of  Austria  were  stinted ;  those  of  France 
unlimited.  In  almost  every  battle  the  French  had  the  advan 
tage.  The  officers,  even  the  subalterns,  had  been  educated  so 
as  to  qualify  them  to  be  generals ;  the  generals  were  fit  for 
nothing  else :  they  understood  their  trade,  and  aspired  to  no 
other  sort  of  distinction.  The  French,  always  well  commanded 
by  their  officers,  well  supplied  by  their  enemies  countries, 
which  they  ravaged,  have  rapidly  overrun  all  Europe. 

ANOTHER  cause  of  the  French  superiority,  and  which  has 
grown  out  of  the  real  superiority  of  their  military  science,  is  to 
be  found  in  the  excellence  of  their  artillery.  The  number, 
and  the  manageableness  of  the  French  field  artillery,  must  have 
given  them  a  decisive  advantage  over  the  Russians  in  the  late 
battle  of  Austeriitz.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed,  that  the  Russians 
have  equally  improved  their  artillery ;  nor,  if  they  had,  would 
they  have  encumbered  their  march  of  eight  hundred  leagues, 
especially  when  they  had  so  many  reasons  for  haste,  with  an 
immense  train  of  field  pieces.  They  would  be  the  less  dis 
posed  to  do  this,  as  the  Austrians  must  have  been  relied 
upon  to  supply  them  in  sufficient  number.  The  French  by 
the  celerity  of  their  movements  had,  however,  obtained  pos 
session  of  a  great  part  of  the  Austrian  artillery.  The  deficiency 
of  the  Russians  in  this  point,  was  probably  a  material  cause  of 
their  loss  of  the  battle. 

WHEN  gun-powder  and  great  guns  were  first  brought  into 
use,  they  were  more  capable  of  striking  an  enemy  with  a 
panick,  than  of  breaking  his  line :  the  cannon  were  unwieldy 
machines,  and  the  management  of  them  was  unskilful.  Still 
the  army  which  had  them,  must  have  possessed  a  great  ad 
vantage  over  that  which  had  none.  In  the  time  of  the  famous 
duke  of  Marlborough,  the  event  of  a  battle  depended  on  the 
expertness  and  resolution  of  infantry  in  discharging  their  mus 
kets.  In  still  more  modern  wars,  the  bayonet  has  been  consi 
dered  the  arbiter  of  victory.  But  the  French  have  introduced 
another  revolution  in  the  science  of  war,  the  lightness  and 
prodigious  number  of  their  horse  artillery  enabling  them  to 
disorder  and  break  an  enemy's  ranks,  without  coining  to  close 


OF  FRANCE.  329 

fight,  by  raining  upon  them  an  intolerable  tempest  of  grape- 
shot. 

BY  means  of  their  innumerable  field  pieces,  and  of  their 
unusual  proportion  of  cavalry,  it  has  become  impossible  for 
their  enemy  to  defend  a  country  by  lines  of  field  intrenchment. 
It  has  been  stated,  that  Buonaparte's  grand  army  was  attended 
by  fifty  thousand  horse.  Such  a  body,  always  on  the  alert, 
could  strike  an  enemy  at  almost  any  distance,  and  in  every 
mortal  part  at  once.  If  he  contracted  his  posts,  his  flanks 
would  be  turned ;  if  he  spread  out  his  troops  to  prevent  it,  his 
lines  would  be  forced.  By  resisting,  he  met  his  fate  ;  and  if 
he  retreated,  it  was  swift  and  overtook  him. 

THUS  we  have  seen  the  French  maintain  the  same  invaria 
ble  superiority  over  the  Austrians,  and  lately  over  the  Rus 
sians,  in  the  field,  that  the  Spaniards  possessed  over  the  Mexi 
cans.  The  Russians  and  Austrians  are  as  brave  as  the  French  ; 
but  the  French  are  really  superiour  in  the  science  of  their 
officers,  in  the  number  and  management  of  their  cannon,  and 
in  their  cavalry.  They  will  continue,  therefore,  to  beat  their 
enemies,  as  the  Romans  did.  Even  the  Grecian  phalanx,  sup 
posed  to  be  the  perfection  of  military  science,  and  absolutely 
invincible,  was  found  unequal  to  the  contest  with  the  Roman 
legion. 

THE  French  victories  have  happened  in  such  a  series,  that 
we  cannot  rationally  suppose  them  to  happen  by  chance.  They 
are  the  inevitable  results  of  superiour  numbers,  and  of  the 
French  military  advantages  we  have  mentioned.  They  would 
happen  again,  if  their  dejected,  beaten  adversaries  could  rise 
again  to  resistance. 

FROM  these  positions  this  melancholy  inference  is  to  be 
drawn :  the  continental  enemies  of  France  are  totally  incapable 
of  resisting  her  in  the  field :  she  has  taken  a  permanent  ascen 
dant  over  them.  Austria,  humbled  and  beaten,  is  in  no  condi 
tion  to  learn  the  conquering  art  of  her  masters.  Prussia, 
without  risking  the  combat,  has  fullen  prostrate  with  her  use 
less  arms  in  her  hands.  Russia,  like  the  ancient  Parthia,  is 
invincible,  but  insignificant  to  the  system  of  enslaved  Europe. 


330  DANGEROUS  POWER 

IF  the  French  armies  could  pass  the  channel,  there  seems 
to  be  no  sort  of  reason  to  hope,  that  Great  Britain  could  resist 
them.  The  regular  army  is  spread  over  all  the  empire,  and, 
if  it  were  all  collected,  it  would  be  a  handful  against  the  French 
hosts ;  and,  surely,  no  military  man  would  place  the  smallest 
dependence  on  the  volunteers  of  England. 

IT  is  one  of  the  inveterate,  perhaps  incurable  evils  of  Mr. 
Pitt's  administration,  and  the  greatest  blemish  in  the  fame  of 
that  truly  illustrious  statesman,  that,  instead  of  forming  an 
efficient  army  of  two  hundred  thousand  men,  who  could  be  sent 
wherever  they  might  be  wanted,  he  was  either  the  schemer 
or  the  dupe  of  the  useless,  expensive,  and,  if  the  French  should 
land  in  England,  fatal  project  of  volunteers.  By  equipping 
volunteers,  he  not  only  had  no  army,  but  it  was  out  of  the  power 
of  England  to  have  one.  The  men  were  all  engaged  in  acting 
the  comedy  of  an  army ;  and  the  finances  were  exhausted  in 
getting  u/i  the  decorations  of  the  piece. 

THE  sole  protection  of  Great  Britain,  then,  is  in  her  navy. 
The  writer  has  been  brought  very  late,  and  loath,  to  believe, 
that  the  military  resistance  of  the  continental  nations  of  Europe 
would  be  ineffectual.  Events  have,  at  last,  convinced  him, 
that  the  French  actually  possess  a  greater  and  more  decisive 
military  superiority  over  those  nations,  than  the  old  Romans 
did  over  the  forces  of  Andochus,  Mithridates,  and  Jugurtha ; 
and,  especially,  over  the  Carthaginians,  Greeks,  and  Mace 
donians.  Nothing  is  wanting  to  the  solid  establishment  of  a 
new  universal  empire  by  France,  that  should  spread  as  far, 
last  as  long,  and  press  as  heavily  on  the  necks  of  the  abject 
nations,  as  that  of  Rome,  but  the  possession  of  the  British  navy. 
France,  whenever  she  can  get  access  to  her  enemy,  is  already 
irresistible.  If  Mr.  Gregg  would  give  her  that  navy,  he  would 
impart  a  kind  of  ubiquity  to  her  power.  The  soft  winds,  that 
wake  the  spring  in  the  remotest  regions  of  the  globe,  would 
waft  there  the  ministers  of  French  rapacity  to  blast  it.  France 
would  enjoy  every  thing  that  Rome  wanted,  to  make  the  plun 
dered  world  her  province. 


OF  FRANCE.  331 

ARE  these  ideas  chimerical  ?  or  are  the  inferences  drawn 
beyond  the  admitted  truth  of  the  premises  ?  Is  India  more 
capable  of  resisting  France,  than  an  English"  merchant  com 
pany,  its  present  sovereign  ?  Spain  and .  Italy  are  provinces 
already.  Greece,  Egypt,  the  Turkish  empire,  and  all  the 
shores  of  the  Mediterranean  were  once  the  patrimony  of  the 
Cesurs,  and  for  many  hundred  years  slept  soundly  in  their 
chains,  till  they  were  rudely  waked  by  the  Goths,  the  Heruli, 
the  Huns,  and  the  Arabs.  Africa  is  a  quarter  of  the  globe, 
that  could  be  governed  by  factories ;  and  America  is  another, 
that  would  yield,  not  merely  with  tameness,  but  alacrity  to  im 
perial  rescripts.  If,  by  miracle,  force  should  be  needed,  France 
could  employ  Spain,  or  Dessalines,  or  slaves  still  more  abject 
than  they>  to  use  it  with  infallible  success.  We  should  be 
ready,  not  merely  to  take,  but  to  buy  our  chains,  and  to  pay 
our  last  dollar  as  a  fine  for  the  temerity  of  our  resistance.  We 
should  patiently  sow  our  fields,  and  see  our  kindly  seasons 
ripen  the  harvest  for  French  reapers.  Our  posterity,  born  in 
servitude,  would  inherit  our  baseness,  and  bear  the  yoke  from 
the  infancy  to  the  old  age  of  their  dishonoured  lives,  without 
sorrow  or  repining. 

SUPPOSE  the  whip  of  the  oppressor  should,  at  length,  tear  off 
the  callous  skin  from  the  slaves'  backs,  and  rage  should  be 
kindled  by  pain,  and  courage  engendered  by  despair ;  yet  our 
resistance  would  only  avail  to  exasperate  our  tyrants,  and  to 
embitter  the  sense  and  aggravate  the  pressure  of  our  calami 
ties.  .  France  would  not  fail  to  array  an  army  of  base  Ameri 
cans,  and  to  place  them  in  the  strongest  positions  of  our 
country  ;  and,  if  these  should  be  insufficient  to  crush  the  first 
movements  of  rebellion,  her  ships  would  transport  reinforce 
ments  from  Europe  with  greater  celerity,  than  the  American 
insurgents  could  collect  and  train  forces  to  resist  them.  Our 
independence,  then  must  be  renounced,  or  we  must  betake 
ourselves  to  the  fastnesses  of  the  wilderness  to  enjoy  it,  like 
the  revolted  negroes  of  St.  Domingo,  in  peril,  want,  and  bar 
barism. 


332  DANGEROUS  POWER 

THE  preservation  of  even  this  condition  would,  then,  appear 
to  exact  and  merit  the  display  of  all  our  energies.  Comfort 
less  and  desperate,  as  that  savage  independence  may  seem,  it 
would  nevertheless  be  preferable  to  the  horrid  stillness  of  our 
servitude  under  the  power  of  French  tyrants,  exercised  by 
their  deputies,  the  Jeffersons  and  Nicholsons,  the  present  arti 
ficers  of  our  ruin. 

IT  is  very  seldom,  that  the  events  of  war  turn  out  according 
to  the  predictions  of  speculatists  on  their  probabilities.  Futu 
rity  is,  no  doubt,  wisely  and  mercifully  hidden  from  our  view. 
Yet  the  issue  of  the  contest  between  France  and  Great  Britain 
is  so  momentous  to  America,  it  is  impossible  to  restrain  our 
curiosity  from  examining  the  position  and  relative  strength  of 
the  combatants. 

GRANT  that  Great  Britain  possesses  adequate  means  to 
cope  with  France,  it  is  an  interesting  previous  question  to 
decide,  or  rather  to  conjecture,  whether  there  is  a  spirit  in 
her  government  and  people  to  persevere  in  the  employment 
of  them. 

THE  death  of  Mr.  Pitt  has  made  a  complete  change  in  the 
ministry.  He  discerned,  and  it  is  strange  that  Mr.  Fox,  his 
supposed  equal  in  talents,  should  not  have  discerned,  the  ne 
cessity  of  opposing  France  in  arms,  and  the  fatal  consequences 
of  a  delusive  peace  ;,  and  any  peace,  that  should  leave  France 
a  giant  among  pigmies,  would  be  delusive.  But,  as  Mr.  Fox 
has  been  the  opposer  of  the  war,  ever  since  1793,  and  as  he 
and  a  large  number  of  his  most  strenuous  adherents  are  admit 
ted  to  power,  it  may  be  expected,  that  he  will  insist  on  propos 
ing  a  negotiation.  Proud  as  Buonaparte  is,  he  would  joyfully 
accept  the  proposal.  He  may  be  as  liberal  as  Englishmen  can 
ask  in  his  terms,  for  any  peace  will  make  him  their  master. 
Nothing  could  make  it  safe,  but  that  France  should  reduce 
her  power.  That  is  a  condition  Mr.  Fox  will  not  prescribe, 
nor  Buonaparte  concede. 

WE  will  not  undertake  to  say,  that  Mr.  Fox  is  bound  in 
point  of  consistency,  now,  to  propose  peace.  He  may  say 
with  plausibility,  perhaps  with  strict  truth,  that  the  circum- 


OF  FRAWCft.  533 

stances  of  the  two  countries  are  changed ;  that  he  was  a  friend 
to  peace,  while  Europe  stood  independent  and  powerful  in 
arms  to  secure  the  observance  of  it  by  the  French  emperour ; 
but  that  now  peace  would  lessen  none  of  the  burdens  of  the 
nation,  while  it  would  put  its  commercial  and  naval  resources, 
inaccessible  in  war,  within  reach  of  the  power  and  intrigues 
of  Buonaparte. 

WHAT  is  Mr.  Fox's  present  opinion  or  disposition,  we 
know  not.  We  have  no  hesitation  in  saying,  that,  as  a  faithful 
member  of  his  majesty's  counsels,  it  is  his  duty  to  prosecute 
the  war,  till  England  can  be  safe  in  peace  ;  and  she  cannot  be 
safe,  unless  she  is  great  in  comparison  with  France. 

ARE  there  not  probable  grounds  of  conjecture,  that  Mr.  Fox 
came  into  the  ministry,  on  the  terms  of  supporting  the  war 
measures  of  the  government.  Before  the  peace  of  Amiens, 
the  fruitless  negotiation,  at  Lisle,  had  opened  the  eyes  of  the 
English  nation  to  the  immeasurable  ambition  and  profligacy  of 
the  French  rulers.  Mr.  Fox  then  persisted  in  condemning  the 
war.  After  the  peace  of  A.miens,  he  paid  a  visit  to  Buonaparte, 
in  Paris,  and  received  and  permitted  such  attention  from  the 
French  chief,  as  raised  the  wonder  and  disgust  of  all  men,  and 
the  suspicions  of  many.  His  motives  for  making  that  visit 
have  never  yet  been  explained. 

THIS  is  certain,  his  parliamentary  influence  had  surprisingly 
dwindled  ;  and,  perhaps,  he  owes  it  as  much  to  his  frank,  open 
disposition,  so  unused  to,  and  incapable  of  duplicity,  as  to  his 
splendid  talents,  that  the  nation,  with  its  characteristick  gene 
rosity,  has  been  willing  to  forget  and  forgive  his  strange  visit 
and  strange  conduct  in  Paris. 

THERE  is  reason  to  believe,  that,  when  Mr.  Pitt  last  came 
into  office,  the  English  king  had  neither  forgiven  nor  forgotten 
it.  He  considered  Mr.  Fox  as  a  jacobin,  and  resolved  to  deny 
the  importunities  of  both  parties  to  admit  Mr.  Fox  to  his  coun 
sels.  Lord  Grenville  thought  himself  bound,  in  consequence, 
to  stand  with  Mr.  Fox,  and  to  decline  office. 

WHEN  the  death  of  Mr.  Pitt  and  the  desertion  of  the  allies 
in  Germany  seemed  to  force  Mr.  Fox  upon  the  king,  for  all 


334  DANGEROUS  POWER 

men  agreed  it  was  necessary  to  drop  party  divisions,  and  to 
unite  against  the  common  danger,  we  are  told,  lord  Grenville 
was  closetted  with  his  majesty,  and  finally  arranged  the  minis 
try  to  mutual  satisfaction.  As  lord  Grenville  is  an  honest  man, 
and  as  able  as  he  is  honest,  we  cannot  believe  such  a.  man 
would  recommend  a  jacobin  to  the  king,  or  that  he  could  pre 
vail  over  his  majesty's  aversion  to  Mr.  Fox,  without  being 
personally  responsible  for  his  conduct  and  principles. 

WHEN  it  is  considered,  also,  that  those  two  eminent  men 
formerly  acted  in  opposition  to  each  other,  and  that,  for  three 
years  past,  they  have  come  to  a  mutual  good  understanding, 
the  grounds  of  division  in  the  present  ministry  must  have  been 
fully  explored,  and  such  engagements  mutually  required  and 
given,  as  will  prevent  their  collision.  Those  who  had  always 
acted  together,  before  they  came  into  the  ministry,  we  think 
more  likely  to  fall  out  afterwards. 

THE  union  of  the  present  ministry  is  the  more  probable,  too, 
when  we  advert  to  the  known  sincerity  and  amiable  temper 
of  Mr.  Fox.  The  attachment  of  no  man's  friends  has  been 
stronger,  than  Mr.  Fox's  have  ever  manifested  towards  him ; 
and  those  who  remember  his  famous  coalition  with  lord  North, 
will  believe,  that  too  much  stubbornness  to  maintain  the  appear 
ance  of  consistency,  is  not  one  of  that  gentleman's  faults. 

MR.  Fox  is  the  only  member  of  the  new  administration,  who 
can  be  the  champion  of  peace  measures.  Lord  Grenville  and 
Mr.  Windham  love  their  country  too  well,  and  its  dangers  are 
too  imminent  to  permit  us  to  believe,  that  they  are  disposed, 
to  adopt  the  fatal  counsel's  of  the  old  opposition. 

ON  these  grounds,  therefore,  we  presume  to  conjecture,  that 
the  English  ministry  will  be  united  in  favour  of  a  prosecution 
of  the  war. 

WE  have  not  yet  inquired,  whether  there  is  sense  and  mag 
nanimity  enough  in  the  nation,  to  support  the  ministry  in  such 
a  resolution.  The  nation,  no  doubt,  is  weary  of  the  war,  and 
staggers  under  the  weight  of  its  burdens  ;  but  peace  can 
scarcely  cheat  the  blind  multitude  with  the  delusive  hope  of  a 
respite  from  those  burdens.  A  vigorous  and  able  opposition 


OF  FRANCE.  33.5 

to  war  in  parliament,  might  afford  aliment  to  the  popular 
discontent ;  but  the  men,  who  used  to  lead  that  opposition,  are 
now  in  the  ministry.  They  may  say,  they  did  not  choose,  and 
have  not  made  the  war ;  their  predecessors,  whom  they  were 
accustomed  to  oppose,  left  it  a  sad  necessity  on  their  hands. 

BESIDES,  peace  has  once  been  tried,  and  proved  not  only 
delusive,  but  almost  futal :  Buonaparte  gained  more  territory 
in  peace  than  in  war ;  and  England  voluntarily  gave  up  her 
conquests,  except  Malta,  Trinidad,  and  Ceylon.  Such  another 
peace  would  ruin  her. 

UNDER  these  circumstances,  it  may  be  expected,  that  even 
the  populace  will  see,  that  the  continuance  of  the  war  is  the 
hard,  but  inevitable,  condition  of  English  liberty  and  indepen 
dence.  If  we  are  not  deceived  in  these  speculations,  the  Bri 
tish  ministry  and  nation  will  concur  in  pursuing  the  war. 
With  what  hope  of  ultimate  success  they  will  pursue  it,  is  a 
more  difficult  problem. 


DANGEROUS  POWER  OF  FRANCE. 
N°.  III. 

THE  sufficiency  of  the  British  finances  to  supply  the  enor 
mous  expenditures  of  the  war,  is  usually  the  first  inquiry.  We 
cannot,  however,  refrain  from  remarking,  that  the  bankruptcy 
of  the  French  government  has  been  incessantly  expected  to 
prove  the  boundary  of  the  French  power.  It  has  happened, 
on  the  contrary,  that  power  has  made  its  own  resources.  No 
government,  certainly  no  arbitrary  government,  will  sit  still 
and  die  for  want  of  means,  when  they  are  to  be  found  within 
its  grasp:  it  will  put  forth  the  hand  of  violent  injustice,  and 
reach  them.  The  rulers  of  France  found  wealth  enough 
within  and  without,  and  they  have  never  hesitated  to  use  it. 
Their  armies  flourished,  while  their  artisans  starved,  and 
their  farmers  desponded.  The  decline  of  all  employments 


336  DANGEROUS  POWER 

but  that  of  arms,  so  far  from  stopping  the  course  of  their  vic 
tories,  materially  contributed  to  accelerate  it. 

THE  free  government  of  England  is  less  disposed  and  less 
qualified  for  these  extremes  ;  but  it  will  not  be  equally  under 
the  necessity  of  resorting  to  them.  The  wealth  of  individuals 
is  incalculable,  and  the  machinery  of  the  English  laws  and 
government  for  extracting  it  in  loans  and  taxes,  with  some 
degree  of  equality,  and  without  popular  opposition,  is,  proba 
bly,  adequate  to  a  great  annual  augmentation.  We  forbear  to 
say,  what  is  the  utmost  that  machinery  could  effect.  An 
urgent  publick  necessity,  so  palpable  as  to  confound  all  doubts 
and  cavils,  we  should  conceive,  would  enable  government  to 
draw  from  the  people  larger  supplies,  by  equal  laws,  than 
could  be  obtained  by  arbitrary  violence.  It  is,  however,  we 
confess,  a  frightful  prospect  for  an  honest  English  minister, 
that  he  must  spend,  for  the  publick  defence,  more  than  he 
can  raise  by  taxes.  Hitherto,  we  believe,  he  has  not  been 
able  to  produce  by  his  ways  and  means  more  than  thirty  five 
or  forty  millions  sterling,  nor  to  bring  his  expenditures  under 
seventy. 

IN  this  extremity,  some  men  have  asked,  whether  the  gov 
ernment  ought  not,  without  further  hesitation,  to  sponge  off 
their  national  debt.  The  jacobin  members  of  our  administra 
tion  will  wonder,  why  thev  have  delayed  it  so  long.  The 
English  government  would  long  trust  and  painfully  try  the 
publick  spirit  of  the  nation,  rather  than  destroy  the  debt.  We 
have  men  in  power,  among  us,  who  would  sooner  destroy 
any  debt,  publick  or  private,  than  hazard  their  popularity  ; 
nay  more,  they  would  sponge  off  all  debts  for  its  sake  ;  but? 
in  England,  nothing  short  of  dire  necessity  will  bring  the 
rulers  to  touch  the  property,  that  has  so  long  been  confided  to 
the  safeguard  of  the  publick  faith  and  morals  ;  nor  will  they, 
of  choice,  withhold  a  penny  of  the  interest. 

IT  is  true,  necessity,  though  it  is  the  tyrant's  plea,  is  a  suffi 
cient  one,  when  it  exists,  for  the  best  government.  There  is 
no  reasoning  against  necessity ;  but  when  there  is  any  reason 
ing  about  its  existence,  it  is  manifest  that  it  does  not  exist :  it 


OF  FRANCE.  33r 

not  only  makes  its  own  law,  but  its  own  evidence.  It  comes 
like  the  fire,  or  flood,  or  pestilence,  and  renders  doubt  as 
much  impossible  as  resistance. 

ADMITTING,  then,  the  sufficiency  of  the  plea  of  necessity  to 
vindicate  the  withholding  of  the  interest  of  the  British  national 
debt  from  the  publick  creditors,  the  fact,  that  such  necessity  ex 
ists,  is  still  to  be  made  out.  We  have  already  said,  this  sober 
argumentative  making  out  of  a  necessity  is  inadmissible. 
Though  it  is  better  the  national  debt  should  perish  than  the 
nation,  still  it  is  no  less  true,  that  the  sponging  off  the  national 
debt  is  a  measure  of  violence,  which  needs  all  the  justification 
that  an  irresistible  necessity  can  afford.  Necessity  is  a  law 
that  makes  all  other  laws  silent.  It  would  vindicate  the  stop 
page  of  the  interest  of  the  national  debt — it  is  equally  mani 
fest,  that  nothing  short  of  actual  necessity  will  justify  such 
an  act. 

Now,  while  the  English  government  is  in  the  regular  course 
of  paying  the  interest,  and  it  is  only  inconvenient  to  proceed 
in  that  course,  because  new  expenses  arise,  and  it  is  an  un 
popular  task  to  provide  taxes  to  supply  them,  it  is  absolutely  a 
relinquishment  of  the  plea  of  necessity,  to  pretend,  that  the 
government  is  forced  to  stop  the  interest. 

WE  know  so  little  of  the  difficulties  of  the  English  govern 
ment  and  nation,  because  we  feel  none  of  them,  that  it  is  not  a 
little  hazardous  for  any  American  speculatist  to  decide  upon 
the  proper  degree  of  boldness,  with  which  they  should  impose 
taxes,  or  the  measure  of  ability  or  patience  of  the  subjects  to 
pay  them.  Nevertheless,  we  should  imagine,  and  we  pre 
sume  to  hope  it  is  the  case,  that,  by  new  arrangements  of  the 
land  tax,  by  the  assessed  taxes,  by  improvements  in  the  mode 
of  collection  of  the  imposts,  and  by  a  reform  of  the  all-con 
suming  poor  rates,  the  publick  revenue  may  be  even  yet  con 
siderably  augmented.  The  power  to  tax,  no  doubt,  has  its  lim 
its;  and  when  a  government  has  multiplied  its  taxes  till  it 
has  reached  those  limits,  a  new  imposition  will  only  give  a 
new  form  to  the  publick  receipts,  without  adding  to  their 
amount.  WTe  may  be  mistaken,  but  we  sincerely  hope  it  will 


338  DANGEROUS  POWER 

prove,  that  the  wealth  of  the  English  subjects  is  abundantly 
adequate  to  all  the  enormous  expenditures  of  this  necessary 
war.  The  time,  we  believe,  has  come  to  justify  all  practica 
ble  reforms  of  expenditure  and  improvements  of  the  revenue, 
rather  than  a  resort  to  violent  and  arbitrary  remedies  of  any 
sort ;  especially  such  as  sponging  off  the  debt. 

FOR  it  can  scarcely  escape  remark,  that  Great  Britain  has 
been,  from  the  first,  contending  against  revolutionary  princi 
ples.  How  can  Great  Britain,  the  champion  of  faith,  and  law, 
and  order,  with  consistency  or  advantage,  adopt,  as  a  remedy, 
the  very  measure  that  is  the  first  badge  and  sure  forerunner 
of  the  evil  ? 

FOR  what  is  revolution  ?  what  is  its  favourite  work,  but  first, 
and  with  most  malignant  ardour,  to  destroy  what  faith,  and 
law,  and  morals,  have  established  and  guarded  ?  The  English 
debt  of  six  hundred  millions  sterling  is  spread  all  over  the 
kingdom :  it  has  taken  root  for  a  century.  To  pluck  that 
root  from  the  soil,  we  believe,  would  shake  the  security  of  all 
property ;  and,  in  the  event,  it  might  possibly  subvert  the 
monarchy. 

WHEN  the  convenience  of  relieving  the  nation  from  this 
mountain  of  debt,  is  once  admitted,  where  will  the  govern 
ment  stop  ?  Will  not  the  progress  be,  as  in  France,  to  make 
one  convenient  sacrifice  a  precedent  and  argument  for  another  ? 
The  clergy  will  (stand  next,  on  the  black  list ;  the  nobles  will 
follow.  Will  the  many  continue  patient  under  the  pressure  of 
taxes,  when  the  plunder  of  the  few  is  so  familiar  a  substitute  ? 
In  a  revolution,  as  in  a  shipwreck,  one  part  of  the  crew  is  kept 
alive  by  eating  the  other. 

THE  national  debt  is,  in  fact,  private  property.  We  cannot 
see,  why  the  publick  should  seize  and  appropriate  to  itself  that 
description  of  private  property,  rather  than  the  ships  in  the 
Thames,  or  the  goods  in  Bond  street.  The  seizure  may  be 
less  unpopular,  and  may  be  more  surely  carried  into  effect, 
than  the  capture  of  the  ships  or  goods ;  but  we  cannot  see, 
that  the  plea  of  necessity  will  better  justify  the  act  in  one 
case  than  the  other.  Indeed,  the  preference  seems  to  be  due 


OF  FRANCE.  339 

to  the  property  in  the  funds,  as  the  government  has  solemnly 
renounced  its  power  of  control  over  it,  and  chosen  to  stand  in 
no  other  relation  to  the  owner  of  stock,  than  as  an  equal  con 
tracting  party. 

To  those,  however,  who  may  consider  this  last  idea  a  mere 
refinement,  too  flimsy  to  be  examined  or  regarded,  when  the 
existence  of  a  nation  is  at  stake,  another  reflection  may  be 
suggested. 

MANY  persons  may  be  led,  by  their  abhorrence  of  jacobin 
ism  and  of  French  tyranny,  to  think  favourably  of  sponging.off 
the  tremendous  mass  of  English  debt,  which  cripples  all  their 
exertions  in  the  war.  England,  once  free  from  this  mill-stone, 
they  imagine,  would  be  in  no  danger  of  sinking.  The  useful 
ness  of  such  an  act  of  injustice  tolerably  well  reconciles  them 
to  its  principle. 

THE  most  successful  answer  to  the  measure  will  be,  to  ques 
tion  its  utility.  The  whole  taxes  fall  far  short  of  the  expendi 
tures  of  the  nation.  Suppose  the  debt  sponged  off,  and  all  the 
products  of  the  present  taxes  applied  to  necessary  expenses, 
how  shall  the  deficiency  be  made  up  ?  By  new  loans  ?  Shall 
the  British  chancellor  of  the  exchequer,  with  the  sponge  in 
one  hand,  hold  out  a  subscription  paper  in  the  other  ?  Who 
would  lend  ?  or  escape  the  mad  house,  if  he  did  ?  If  loans  could 
be  obtained,  a  new  national  debt  would  be  scored  up,  at  the 
rate  of  thirty  five  or  forty  millions  a  year ;  and,  as  soon  as  the 
size  of  the  debt  had  begun  to  terrify  some  by  its  effect  to 
cripple  the  energies  of  the  government,  and  to  tire  others  by 
the  pressure  of  taxes,  it  must  be  sponged  off  again.  Be  it 
remembered,  the  violent  remedies  of  great  evils  are,  almost 
always,  aggravations  of  those  evils.  If  the  minister,  unable  or 
unwilling  to  borrow,  should  raise  taxes  within  the  year,  equal 
to  the  expenditures  of  war,  what  becomes  of  the  plea  of 
necessity  ? 

ON  the  whole,  is  it  not  right,  that  the  property  of  a  nation 
should  defend  its  liberty  ?  and  is  this  to  be  done  to  the  extent 
that  the  publick  safety  may  require,  unless  the  govern ment 


340  DANGEROUS  POWER 

can  obtain  loans  in  its  necessity,  that  it  will  provide  for  in  its 
prosperity  ?  A  great  publick  debt  is,  no  doubt,  a  great  evil ;  but 
the  loss  of  liberty  and  independence  is  one  infinitely  greater.  It 
is  some  alleviation  of  that  evil,  for  any  government  (for  all  are 
prone  enough  to  become  corrupt)  habitually  to  guide  its  mea 
sures  and  its  counsels,  by  the  experience,  that  its  good  faith  is 
its  good  policy.  It  ought  to  make  men  better,  to  contemplate  the 
example  of  a  state,  tried,  and  tempted  by  adversity,  and  groan 
ing  under  the  load  of  taxes,  yet  still  faithful  to  its  engagements, 
and  enjoying  an  ample  resource  in  the  confidence  of  its  cre 
ditors,  by  deserving  their  confidence  and  keeping  their  pro 
perty  sacred  from  violation.  Such  a  state  gives  an  illustrious 
lesson  of  morality  to  its  subjects.  It  fulfils  the  great  duty  of 
all  governments,  which  is  to  protect  property.  This  is  not 
all.  It  will  seem,  to  some  practical  men,  still  more  to  the  pur 
pose,  that  such  a  state  will  have  the  control,  in  the  extreme 
exigencies  of  the  publick  affairs,  of  the  last  shilling  of  private 
property.  Such  is  the  spectacle  of  the  British  government. 

IT  is  left  to  others  to  compute,  how  essential  a  part  of  the 
national  wealth  consists  of  property  in  the  national  debt,  and  how 
much  poorer  the  nation  would  be  by  sponging  it  off.  Such  a 
measure  would  aggravate  necessity ;  but  we  cannot  conceive 
how  it  would  supply  means.  As  this  violation  of  the  publick 
faith  would  be  the  most  tremendous,  as  also  the  most  unequal 
and  unfair  tax,  that  ever  was  levied  on  a  state,  it  is  natural  to 
suppose,  the  dread  of  it  and  the  dread  of  the  enemy  would 
sanction  other  very  strong  measures  to  get  at  the  wealth  of  the 
subjects  by  taxes,  and  that  they  would  cheerfully  acquiesce,  at 
least,  in  their  temporary  adoption. 

IT  is,  therefore,  we  confess,  beyond  our  comprehension,  how 
the  stoppage  of  the  interest  of  the  publick  debt,  in  other  words 
the  sponge,  for  such  it  would  prove,  could  relieve  the  dis 
tresses  of  Great  Britain,  or  supply  the  resources  for  the  prose 
cution  of  the  war.  It  might  ensure  an  English  revolution. 
The  work  of  destruction  may  be  begun  by  choice,  but  it  never 
stops  while  there  is  any  thing  left  to  destroy.  Its  hostility 


OF  FRANCE.  341 

would  be  felt  by  the  British  government,  alid  derided  by  that 
of  France. 

<•  WE  know  not  how  the  British  ministry  can  find  money  for 
their  enormous  charges ;  but,  nevertheless,  we  believe  they 
will  find  it,  because  it  exists,  and  enough  of  it,  in  the  hands  of 
the  opulent  subjects  of  that  monarchy. 

WE  believe,  too,  they  justly  dread  the  terrible  and  incalcula 
ble  evils  of  a  bankruptcy,  and  that  they  will  find  means  to  avoid 
it.  If  a  sense  of  common  danger  ever  unites  men,  the  British 
nation  will  be  united ;  and  if  united  and  wisely  governed,  we 
hope  they  will  prove  unconquerable. 

ADMITTING,  then,  that  Great  Britain  will  not  be  forced  to 
submit  to  peace,  which  is  to  submit  to  the  yoke  of  France, 
from  the  failure  of  her  finances,  it  remains  to  inquire,  how 
long  and  with  what  prospect  of  success  she  can  pursue  the  war. 

IT  does  not  appear,  that  she  could  not  prosper  in  commerce 
and  private  wealth,  if  the  war  should  last  half  a  century ;  and 
to  those  who  fear  the  war  may  last  for  ever,  and  therefore  seem 
to  think  a  bad  peace  ought  to  be  chosen  now,  unless  some 
definite  time  or  some  precise  object  could  be  proposed,  as  the 
end  of  the  war,  it  is  a  sufficient  answer  to  say,  that  war  is  a  hard 
condidon  of  national  existence,  but  preferable  to  their  sub 
jugation  by  France.  Base  are  Englishmen,  unlike  their  an 
cestors,  if  they  would  not  sooner  toil  for  taxes  to  support  the 
war,  or  bleed  on  a  ship's  deck,  than  sweat  under  the  dominion 
of  a  French  prefect.  Perhaps  ive  may  wonder  at  their  ideas  ; 
but  Englishmen  will  dread  ignominy  more  than  taxes  or  wounds. 

WHILE  the  British  navy  continues  mistress  of  the  seas,  it 
is  scarcely  possible,  that  Buonaparte  should  execute  his  threat 
of  an  invasion.  If,  then,  the  English  cannot  make  war  on  the 
land,  nor  the  French  on  the  sea,  it  would  seem  that  military 
operations  and  military  spirit  must  languish.  There  is  reason 
to  fear,  that  this  state  of  defensive  languor  will  engender  dis 
content  in  England.  But  though  the  expenses  might  be  di 
minished,  if  Britain  should  have  no  allies,  and  should  fit  out  no 
expeditions,  they  would  still  be  enormous.  When  the  fashion 
able  follv  of  the  volunteer  arnw  shall  be  no  longer  in  voerue, 


342  DANGEROUS  POWER 

an  efficient  and  large  regular  army  would  enable  Great  Britain 
to  strike  her  enemy  in  many  vulnerable  points.     She  ought 
to  provide  such  an  army,  on  which  alone  she  could  depend  to 
expel  the  French,  if  they  should  ever  land  on  the  island.  The 
distant  colonies  of  France  are  vulnerable,  and  would  yield  to  an 
attack.     The  employment  of  the  forces  would  cherish  the 
military  spirit  of  her  subjects ;  and  conquests  are  among  the 
best  expedients  to  preserve  harmony  and  union  in  the  nation. 
A  SOLICITUDE  about  the  ability  of  Great  Britain  to  resist 
France,  will  be  understood  by  some  of  the  weak,  and  will  be 
misrepresented  by  all  the  base  and  unprincipled,  as  implying 
a  desire,  that  the  United  States,  in  respect  to  maritime  rights 
and  national  dignity,  should  lie  at  the  mercy  of  the  mistress  of 
the  ocean.     On  the  contrary ;  let  every  real  American  patriot 
insist,  that  our  government  should  place  the  nation  on  its  pro 
per  footing,  as  a  naval  power.     With  a  million  tons  of  mer 
chant  shipping,  and  a  hundred  thousand  seamen,  equally  brave 
and  expert,  it  is  the  fault  of  a  poor-spirited  administration,  that 
we  are  insignificant  and  despised.     It  is  their  fault,  that  our 
harbours  are  blockaded,  by  three  British  ships,  and  that  out 
rages  are  perpetrated  within  the  waters  that  form  part  of  our 
jurisdiction,  such  as  no  circumstances  can  justify.     Can  there 
exist  a  stronger  proof,  that  our  insignificance  is  to  be  ascribed 
to  a  bad  administration,  than  this  single  fact :  with  the  greatest 
merchant  marine  in  the  world,  except  one,  and,  of  consequence, 
capable  of  being  soon  the  second  naval  power,  (in  our  own 
seas,  the  first,)  we  are  utterly  helpless :  that,  in  the  opinion 
even  of  our  rulers  themselves,  our  only  mode  of  redress,  when 
our  commerce  is  obstructed,  is  TO  DESTROY  OUR  COMMERCE  ! ! 
We  have  the  means  for  its  protection,  which  our  adminis 
tration,  unhappily,  think  it  would  prove  more  expensive  to 
use,  than  its  protection  would  be  worth.     They  would  provide 
against  the  violation  of  our  territory  by  tribute,  and  of  our  com 
merce  by  non-importation. 

WHILE,  therefore,  we  explicitly  disclaim  all  apology  for 
the  abuses  of  the  British  naval  power ;  while  we  strongly  re- 
ppobate  the  cowardice,  or  folly,  or  both,  that  leaves  our  country 


OF  FRANCE.  343 

defenceless,  when  it  is  injured,  we  must  view  it  as  an  interest 
ing  inquiry,  whether  England  can  resist  France ;  for,  if  she 
can  not,  it  is  certain  we  shall  not. 

WHAT  could  France  do,  to  annoy  Great  Britain?  Nothing; 
but  to  create  expense  to  her  government.  What  could  Great 
Britain  do,  to  annoy  France  ?  Much  ;  enough  to  make  the  dis 
tress  of  war  reach  her  subjects  ;  to  cut  off  nearly  all  her  mari 
time  trade ;  and  to  spread  want,  discontent,  and  despair  from 
the  Baltick  to  the  Adriatick. 

THE  colonies  of  the  enemies  of  Great  Britain  would  shrivel, 
like  plants  and  flowers  on  the  Arabian  desert,  if  they  were  no 
longer  moistened  by  the  rills  of  commerce.  We  may  assist 
our  conjectures  of  what  Great  Britain  may  do,  by  asking  our 
selves,  what  we  should  do,  in  such  a  case,  if  ive  possessed  the 
British  navy,  and  were  contending,  as  she  is,  for  liberty  and 
life  against  France. 


C    344 


NON-INTERCOURSE  ACT. 

First  publisJied  in  the  Repertory,  August,  1806. 

anti-commercial  rulers  seem  to  think,  still,  that  the 
non-intercourse  act  will  bring  Great  Britain  to  terms.  Some 
time  in  December,  the  gun,  which  congress  primed  and  loaded, 
must  go  off,  unless  John  Bull,  who  is  so  notoriously  afraid  of 
a  gun,  shall,  before  the  day  fixed  for  his  fate,  turn  from  the 
errour  of  his  ways,  and  by  repentance  obtain  Mr.  Jefferson's 
mercy. 

No  one  will  deny  the  great  importance  of  this  subject ;  or 
that  the  question  in  respect  to  our  maritime  rights,  which  ivc 
have  decided  so  much  off-hand,  may  possibly  have  two  sides 
to  it ;  that  Great  Britain  contests  our  doctrine,  and  believes, 
or  affects  to  believe,  her  admission  of  it  would  be  fatal  to  her 
naval  greatness  and  independence.  When,  therefore,  she  is 
so  loath  and  so  much  afraid  to  yield  the  point,  it  seems  as  if 
her  finally  yielding  must  depend  on  her  being  still  more  afraid 
of  our  resentment,  than  of  every  other  ill  consequence. 

THE  matter  will,  of  course,  undergo  examination  in  England, 
how  much  reason  she  has  to  be  afraid  of  us ;  and  if  our  resent 
ment  shall  appear  to  be  of  two  evils  the  greatest,  we,  who  lay 
national  honour  out  of  the  account,  are  naturally  enough  ready 
to  expect  she  will  humble  herself  in  the  dust  before  Mr. 
Monroe,  to  avert  our  wrath,  that  "  distant  thunder,"  which  the 
National  Intelligencer  so  distinctly  heard  in  December  last. 

BUT  that  typographical  thunder,  which  was  expected  to 
shake  the  plates  and  porringers  on  the  shelves  at  St.  James's, 
has  been  mufRed  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantick.  Our  publick 
will  not  break  its  nap  on  the  apprehension  of  Mr.  Wright's^, 
or  Mr.  Gregg's,  or  Mr.  Nicholson's  breaking  the  peace  with 
Great  Britain.  Nothing  can  exceed  our  apathy.  Whether  it 
be,  that  we  are  a  stupid  people,  or  that  we  feel  to  excess  and 
to  frenzy,  as  party  men,  so  that,  as  patriots,  we  feel  and  fear 


NON-INTERCOURSE  ACT.  345 

nothing  ;  or  that  our  mortified  pride  takes  some  delight  in 
blustering  and  threatening  Great  Britain,  while  France  empties 
her  vessels  of  honour  on  our  heads  ;  or  that  evils  in  prospect 
for  the  next  year  have  no  terrours  to  the  politicians,  who  never 
look  so  far  ;  whatever  it  may  be  owing  to,  the  fact  is,  we 
behave  on  the  question,  whether  we  shall  have  any  trade,  even 
more  strangely  careless  than  the  Dutch  do,  in  respect  to  the 
matter  of  having  a  French  king  or  a  republick.  It  seems  as 
if  our  rulers  had  reason  to  be  bold,  when  they  are  preparing 
to  make  us  suffer,  by  our  defiance  of  their  power  to  make  us 
think — Says  Moses  to  the  vicar,  "  the  corpse  can't  take 
cold."  Our  indifference  may  not  be  a  shield  of  defence,  but 
it  is  opium  against  our  dread  of  blows. 

IF  our  indifference  did  not  surpass  belief,  the  subject  would 
have  been  long  ago  eagerly  discussed.  We  should  have  scru 
tinized,  much  more  closely  than  Mr.  Nicholson  is  capable  of 
doing,  the  grounds  of  our  assumed  opinion,  that  Great  Britain 
has  such  great  reason  to  be  afraid  of  us ;  and,  probably,  we  should 
have  found  occasion  to  suspect,  that  party  has  deceived  our 
expectations  on  this  question,  as  on  almost  every  other.  Every 
body  knows,  that  Mr.  Jefferson  dare  not  go  to  war  :  the  fede 
ralists  are  the  only  enemies  whom  he  ventures  to  defy  ;  and 
even  their  accusations  are  not  to  be  encountered  in  close  fight. 
He  cannot  fight  Spain  without  first  asking  leave  of  France  •; 
of  course,  a  Spanish  war  is  out  of  the  question. 

To  fight  Great  Britain,  is  equally  so  ;  yet,  as  great  complaint 
is  made  of  captures,  and  as  Buonaparte  will  be*  soothed  by  a 
shew  of  hostility  against  England,  the  shew  is  resolved  upon. 
But  be  it  noted,  the  shew  may  lead  to  the  thing  itself !  He  begins 
to  bully.  Great  Britain  scorns  to  yield  to  his  paper  bullets. 
New  acts  must  be  passed,  still  more  angry  than  Nicholson's. 
Popular  rage  grows  out  of  commercial  distress,  and  wTar  fol 
lows.  If  this  course  be  only  foreseen,  will  Mr.  Jefferson's 
admirers  stick  to  him  ?  Certainly  not. 

THE  federalists  say,  and  really  believe,  that  Mr.  Nicholson's 
act  is  a  feeble  measure.     Suppose,  on  trial,  it  proves  feeble, 
44  * 


346  NON-INTERCOURSE  ACT. 

what  is  to  be  clone  ?  Is  some  new  act  to  be  passed,  that  will  not 
be  feeble  ?  What  act,  short  of  war  or  reprisals,  can  it  be  ? 

WISE  nations,  foreseeing  the  ordinary  progress  of  such 
hostile  acts,  will  stop  short,  and  compute  their  force,  before 
they  resort  to  them.  Pride  and  passion  once  up,  interest 
weighs  little  ;  and  our  threats  will  raise  either  British  resent 
ment  or  contempt.  If  we  put  them  on  their  mettle,  they  will, 
no  doubt,  shew  how  little  they  regard  their  commercial  profits, 
even  if  we  could  seriously  diminish  them.  Mr.  Nicholson's 
act  is  avowedly  of  the  nature  of  compulsion  ;  and  we  know 
how  the  attempt  at  compulsion  will  affect  a  government,  which, 
we  choose  to  say,  has,  at  least,  as  much  pride  as  power. 

IF  any  body  in  America  cared  about  the  consequences  of 
this  commercial  warfare,  which  does  not  seem  to  be  the  case, 
it  would  be  proper  to  point  out  the  futility  of  the  system  adopt 
ed  by  our  Solomon  in  council.  The  two  countries  are,  no 
doubt,  in  a,  condition  to  do  each  other  a  good  deal  of  harm. 
W7e  forbear  to  enter  at  length  on  the  inquiry,  which  can  do 
the  most.  Let  our  Southern  wiseacres  consider  carefully  what 
would  be  the  consequence,  if  Great  Britain,  in  retaliation  for 
Mr.  Nicholson's  act,  should  prohibit,  after  December  next,  the 
importation  into  Great  Britain  of  American  rice,  cotton,  and 
tobacco.  They  will,  no  doubt,  say,  these  articles  are  a  mono 
poly  ;  they  cannot  get  them  elsewhere.  It  is  easy  to  say  so— 
but  is  it  true  ?  Bluster,  gentlemen,  but,  before  it  be  too  late, 
try  likewise  to  think. 


[     347     ] 

LESSONS  FROM  HISTORY. 
N°.   I. 

First  inilllshed  in  the  Rci>ertor'j,  Octdw,  ISOfi. 

V>HARLES  II,  king  of  Great  Britain,  was  secretly,  a  catho- 
lick  ;  and  his  subjects  were,  ninety  nine  out  of  a  hundred,  pro- 
testants.  He  was  fond  of  arbitrary  power ;  and  his  people 
passionately  fond  of  liberty.  The  times  required  a  close  appli 
cation  to  publick  business ;  and  his  temper  drove  him  head 
long  into  licentious  pleasures.  His  revenue  had  narrow  limits  ; 
and  his  prodigality  no  limits  at  all. 

HE  was  one  of  the  most  pleasant  gentlemen  in  England, 
and  as  much  of  a  Scholar,  as  our  Mr.  Jefferson,  though  less 
of  a  pedant,  and  a  quidnunc.  Yet,  after  being  possessed  of 
unbounded  popularity,  he  lost  it  all,  and  deserved  to  lose  it, 
because  in  every  thing,  as  a  king,  he  acted  in  the  meanest 
subserviency  to  his  prejudices  and  pleasures  as  a  man. 

ACCORDINGLY,  through  his  whole  disgraceful  reign,  the 
English  nation  suffered  much,  and  apprehended  every  thing, 
from  his  corrupt  and  treacherous  policy  ;  treacherous,  be 
cause  he  pursued  an  interest  of  his  own,  separate  from  the 
general  interest.  Indeed,  that  nation  still  suffers  from  his 
misconduct.  For  Charles  basely  accepted  a  pension  from 
Louis  XIV.  the  Buonaparte  of  the  seventeenth  century,  in 
consideration  of  which  he  not  only  forbore  to  act  against  the 
schemes  of  universal  empire,  that  Louis  XIV.  had  then  begun 
to  pursue,  but  he  hindered  the  parliament  from  disturbing  the 
conquering  career  of  France  :  nay,  to  the  astonishment  of  all 
Europe,  he  joined  Louis  in  attacking  the  Dutch.  It  was  then 
in  the  power  of  England  to  have  prevented  the  aggrandize 
ment  of  F ranee  ;  and  such  was  the  desire  of  the  EnglisJi  par 
liament  and  nation,  such  was  their  true  policy. 

BY  neglecting  that  opportunity,  oceans  of  blood  have  since 
been  shed  in  vain.  In  1672,  the  renewal  of  the  triple  alliance, 
negotiated  by  sir  William  Temple,  would  have  confined 


318  LESSONS  FROM  HISTORY. 

France  to  her  ancient  limits,  probably  without  a  war.  But, 
though  it  would  have  been  easy  to  prevent  her  from  growing 
great,  it  has  proved  hard,  indeed  impossible,  after  she  had 
become  great,  to  reduce  her  to  her  former  size.  The  errours 
of  1672  are  visited  on  the  heads  of  Englishmen  in  1806. 

EVERY  democrat  will  exclaim,  kings  are  base  creatures, 
who  have  no  interest  in  the  good  of  the  people.  This  vile 
example  is  not  to  our  purpose. 

A  KING  can  be  nothing  else  but  a  king :  when  he  loses  his 
throne,  he  cannot  expect  to  preserve  his  life.  But  a  magis 
trate  chosen  to  play  the  part  of  a  king  for  four  years,  may  have, 
and,  if  he  feels  a  low  ambition,  will  certainly  think  he  has,  an 
interest  as  a  man,  very  little  connected  with  the  temporary 
splendour  of  his  office.  He  is  to  the  full  as  unwilling  to  be 
dethroned,  as  any  other  king  ;  and,  therefore,  he  will  think 
much  of  the  popularity,  that  will  secure  his  re-election  at  the 
end  of  four  years,  and  very  little  of  the  publick  evils,  that  will 
He  hidden  from  the  eyes  of  the  people  for  the  next  seven. 

IT  would  be  childish,  to  think  a  demagogue  will  be  a  disin 
terested  patriot.  It  would  be  absurd,  to  expect  that  any  body, 
but  a  patriot  of  the  loftiest  elevation  of  soul,  would  prefer  the 
pubiick  to  himself,  and  would  turn  himself  out  of  office  by 
doing  thankless  and  unpopular  acts  of  duty. 

A  DEMAGOGUE,  then,  if,  for  the  punishment  of  the  sins  of 
our  nation,  any  future  president  should  prove  to  be  such,  would 
certainly  dismantle  our  ships,  and  leave  the  forts  of  our  har 
bours  to  crumble  into  ruins.  He  would  disband  our  feeble 
regular  regiments,  and  make  haste  to  repeal  taxes,  that  he 
may  grow  rich  in  popularity,  while  the  government  is  ostenta 
tiously  made  to  decline  in  resources.  He  will  bluster  to  shew 
the  spirit,  that  he  does  not  possess ;  and  pay  tribute  to  hide 
the  insults  and  wrongs,  that  he  dare  not  revenge.  In  this 
way,  his  own  shame  will  be  exposed  three  or  four  years  the 
later ;  and  the  publick  evils  will  happen,  at  last,  with  all  the 
aggravation  that  improvidence  and  folly  can  bring. 

WE  make  no  comparisons — we  leave  the  reader  to  apply 
facts,  as  he  may  think  them  applicable.  But,  we  must  con- 


LESSONS  FROM  HISTORY.  349 

less,  the  spirit  of  party  has  found  our  countrymen  base,  or  has 
made  them  so,  if  they  can  behold  the  all-conquering  progress 
of  French  ambition,  and  then  think,  with  any  temper,  that  our 
country  has  not  only  been  left,  but  for  five  years  artificially 
and  systematically  made,  defenceless,  as  if  it  was  intended  for 
a  prey. 


LESSONS  FROM  HISTORY. 
N°.  IT. 

THE  Stuart  family  kept  possession  of  the  English  throne 
from  1603,  when  queen  Elizabeth  died,  to  1688,  when  James 
II.  abdicated  the  government,  a  period  of  eighty  five  years. 
Though  not  very  bad  men,  they  were  bad  kings.  Their 
notions  of  government  were  such  as  have  been  since  called 
tory.  They  were  sincere  in  their  principles  of  arbitrary  power, 
which  were,  no  doubt,  utterly  inconsistent  with  English  lib 
erty.  We  would  not  be  understood  to  justify  all  the  conduct 
of  the  parliament  against  Charles  I.  nevertheless,  we  hold 
the  English  in  grateful  respect  for  their  spirit  and  good  sense, 
by  which  they  nobly  asserted  their  own  liberty,  the  ever-glo 
rious,  fundamental  principles  of  which  our  ancestors,  God 
bless  their  memory  !  brought  over  to  New-England. 

BUT  the  ambition  and  hypocrisy  of  the  parliamentary  lead 
ers,  and  the  tyranny  which  inevitably  grew  out  of  their  demo 
cracy,  produced  an  abhorrence  of  levelling  notions,  and  an 
attachment  to  the  church  and  monarchy,  which  gave  rise,  or, 
at  least,  credit  and  currency  to  the  doctrines  of  passive  obedi 
ence  and  non-resistance ;  doctrines  subversive  of  all  liberty. 

HENCE  it  was,  that,  when  the  infatuation  of  James  II.  had 
assisted  William,  prince  of  Orange,  to  dethrone  him,  (and 
the  folly  of  James  did  more  towards  it  than  the  arms  of  Wil 
liam)  the  English  parliament  cautiously  and  timidly  admitted 
the  principles  of  the  revolution.  To  unmake  kings,  seemed 
to  them  a  work,  that  might  be  repeated  successively  with  less 
and  less  necessity,  and  at  length  licentiousness,  such  as  fol- 


350  LESSONS  FROM  HISTORY. 

lowed  the  beheading*  of  Charles  I.  would  ensue.  When,  there 
fore,  queen  Mary,  wife  of  king  William  and  daughter  of  the 
exiled  king  James,  died,  William  remained  king  by  no  right 
of  blood,  but  only  by  virtue  of  an  act  of  parliament,  which  might 
be  repealed  by  any  change  of  the  majority.  In  this  perilous 
state  of  things,  men's  minds  were  agitated  with  the  fears  of  a 
renewal  of  those  bloody  dissensions,  which  the  contest  for  the 
crown,  between  the  rival  houses  of  York  and  Lancaster,  had 
engendered  and  protracted  for  more  than  a  century.  "-* '•• 

Ax-length  king  William  died,  and  also  his  rival  king  James  ; 
and  Anne,  another  daughter  of  king  James,  succeeded  to  the 
crown,  according  to  the  act  of  parliament.  The  death  of  the 
duke  of  Gloucester,  the  only  child  of  Anne,  happened  before 
the  death  of  king  William  ;  and,  as  there  was  no  hope  of  her 
having  more  children,  men  began  to  turn  their  eyes  to  her 
brother,  the  pretender,  so  called.  He  was  an  infant,  when  the 
bigotry  of  his  father,  king  James,  obliged  him  to  take  refuge 
in  the  court  of  Louis  XIV.  It  seemed,  therefore,  to  many  lovers 
of  their  country,  a  needless  and  a  merciless  persecution  of  this 
young  prince,  to  visit  his  father's  follies  on  his  innocent  head, 
and  to  prefer  the  princess  Sophia  of  Hanover,  one  of  the  most 
distant  relations  of  the  roya!  family,  to  the  pretender,  who,  in 
right  of  blood,  was  heir  to  the  British  crown.  Yet  the  whig 
party  got  the  famous  Act  of  Settlement  passed  in  favour  of  the 
princess  Sophia,  by  virtue  of  which  king  George  III.  now  holds 
his  power. 

IN  these  singular  circumstances,  it  was  not  strange,  that 
there  was  a  secret  intestine  agitation  of  parties  and  opinions, 
throughout  the  whole  of  queen  Anne's  reign.  She  herself,  no 
doubt,  wished  that  her  brother,  the  pretender,  might  succeed 
her,  in  preference  to  the  house  of  Hanover,  whom  she  deemed 
strangers.  Nevertheless,  as  she  held  her  crown  in  prejudice 
of  her  brother's  right,  by  an  act  of  parliament,  and  as  the  na 
tion  had  an  unconquerable  dread  of  popery  and  arbitrary  power, 
to  which  James  and  his  son  were  supposed  to  be  wedded,  she 
was  forced  to  conceal  her  inclination  and  intentions.  This  was 
the  more  necessary,  as  her  whig  ministry,  men  of  vast  abilities, 


LESSONS  FROM  HISTORY.  351 

\vere  possessed  of  unbounded  popularity,  and  the  victories  of 
the  duke  of  Mariborough  threw  a  glory  over  her  reign  and 
nation. 

BUT  so  inconstant  is  popularity,  that  the  credit  of  the  whigs 
began  to  decline,  in  the  midst  of  successes  and  triumphs.  The 
queen  seized  the  moment  to  dismiss  her  ministers,  of  whom 
she  was  weary,  and  to  introduce  the  tories  in  their  stead. 

THE  new  tory  ministry  affected  great  zeal  for  the  prosecu 
tion  of  the  war  against  France,  though,  in  their  hearts,  they 
wished  for  peace,  because  the  war  supported  the  popularity  of 
the  whigs  and  the  power  of  Maryborough,  their  leader,  and 
because  it  was  the  interest  of  their  party  to  have  peace.  Peace, 
on  many  accounts,  was  indispensable  to  them,  especially,  before 
France  was  reduced  in  her  power,  because  they  looked  for 
ward  to  the  death  of  queen  Anne,  when  they  might  need  the 
powerful  help  of  France  to  place  the  pretender  on  the  throne. 

THE  duke  of  Mariborough  had  been  continued  in  command; 
and  such  was  his  superiour  talent,  that  he  had  every  reason, 
to  expect  to  strip  Louis  XIV.  of  all  his  conquests,  and  to  re 
duce  him  to  a  condition  of  weakness,  which  would  for  ever 
defeat  the  enormous  project  of  aggrandizement,  which  had 
agitated  Europe  for  fifty  years,  and  which  has  lately  overturned 
it  from  its  foundation.  So  far  the  views  of  Mariborough  and 
his  former  whig  associates  seem  to  be  justified  by  the  wisest 
policy  and  the  truest  patriotism.  But  the  tories  made  a  clamour 
about  the  expenses  of  the  war ;  they  preached  economy,  they 
affected  to  prefer  the  arts  and  the  benefits  of  peace  to  the 
glitter  of  triumphs  and  to  the  delusive  acquisitions  of  war ; 
delusive,  they  said,  for,  while  England  gained  nothing,  her 
allies  were  aggrandizing  themselves  by  conquests,  which  were 
won  by  English  arms.  The  finest  writers  of  almost  any  age 
joined  the  tory  cause  with  their  pens ;  and  at  length  the  new 
ministers  dismissed  the  duke  of  Mariborough,  and  privately 
signed  preliminary  articles  of  peace  with  France.  This  dis 
honourable  transaction  was  not  long  a  secret.  It  produced 
jealousy  and  discord  among  the  allies,  as  might  be  expected, 
and  at  length  a  wretched  peace,  which  somewhat  humbled 


352  LESSONS  FROM  HISTORY. 

France,  but  stripped  her  of  little  of  the  means,  and  of  none  of 
the  disposition,  at  a  more  convenient  season,  to  become  the 
mistress  of  Europe.  This  she  has  at  length  effected. 

THUS  we  see,  that  a  party  invested  with  power,  when  it  has 
an  interest  distinct  from  the  national  interest,  will  be  carried 
on  by  its  hatred  of  its  political  enemies  to  sacrifice  the  publick 
cause  to  its  own.  Heaven  forbid,  that  France  should  at  last 
triumph  over  the  United  States  by  the  operation  of  such  a 
party  interest  in  America. 


LESSONS  FROM  HISTORY. 
N°.  III. 

GREAT  BRITAIN,  whose  name  and  independence,  whose 
king  and  people  every  jacobin  thinks  it  a  debt  of  gratitude  to 
France  to  abhor,  was  once  the  sovereign  of  the  territory  now 
called  the  United  States  of  America. 

MR.  Jefferson's  wise,  vigorous,  and  pacifick  conduct  has 
been  so  much  puffed  by  his  friends,  it  has  become  of  impor 
tance,  and  will  be  of  more  and  more,  to  scrutinize  it.  If  Mr. 
Jefferson,  now  we  are  independent,  has  done  less  for  our 
honour  and  safety  than  Great  Britain  did,  when  we  were  colo 
nies  ;  if  he  has  done  that  little,  later,  and  in  a  manner  to  make 
it  rather  worse  "than  doing  nothing  at  all,  our  respect  for  Mr. 
Jefferson's  policy  ought  to  decline,  or  his  friends  ought  to  look 
out  for  some  other  more  solid  props  to  support  it. 

IT  would  seem  strange,  if,  on  inquiry,  it  should  appear,  that 
our  tyrant  and  oppressor,  as  the  democrats  hold  it  orthodoxy 
to  consider  Great  Britain  ;  it  would  seem  strange,  that  she 
should  have  acted  with  more  spirit,  promptness,  and  liberality 
in  asserting  our  rights,  than  our  government  is  now  willing 
that  we,  independent  states,  should  act  for  ourselves. 

FACTS,  which  often  spoil  the  work  of  party,  facts  will  shew, 
that  no  sooner  had  the  war  for  the  succession  of  the  daughter 


LESSONS  FROM  HISTORY.  353 

of  the  emperour  Charles  VI.  to  the  dominion  of  the  house  of 
Austria  ended  by  the  peace  of  Aix  la  Chapelle,  in  1748,  than 
France  began  to  extend  her  forts  on  our  frontiers  from  the  St. 
Lawrence  to  the  Mississippi.  She  pretended,  that  her  colonies, 
Canada  and  Louisiana,  extended  to  the  Allegheny  mountains, 
and  included  the  Mississippi,  the  Ohio,  the  Monongahela,  and 
other  rivers,  as  well  as  the  great  lakes.  France  did  not  mere 
ly  claim  the  territory — she  proceeded  to  occupy  it  with  military 
posts,  and  to  expel  the  few  English  settlers  that  she  found 
within  her  pretended  limits. 

DID  the  English  king  tell  his  parliament,  that  these  aggres 
sions  sprung  from  the  wantonness  of  subalterns,  unauthorized 
by  their  government,  and  that  he  relied  on  the  justice  of  his 
most  Christian  majesty  for  redress  ?  Did  he  send  a  humble 
embassy  to  Paris  to  beg  for  it  ?  and,  when  it  could  not  be  had 
for  begging,  did  he  get  an  appropriation  of  two  millions,  and 
then  spend  fifteen  to  buy  it  ?  and,  after  finding  that  he  had  paid 
for  it  in  vain,  did  he  send  to  Paris  two  millions  more  for  leave 
only  to  talk  about  buying  it  again  ?  When  Spain  encroached 
upon  us,  when  she  stopped  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi 
in  avowed  violation  of  our  solemn  right  by  treaty,  what  did  we 
leave  undone,  that  baseness,  crawling  on  its  belly,  like  a  reptile 
on  the  ground,  could  possibly  do  to  prevail  on  the  proud  aggres 
sor  to  forbear  treading  upon  us  ?  We  asked  his  contempt,  as 
if  it  was  our  interest,  by  obtaining  it,  to  quiet  his  groundless 
fears  of  retaliation. 

IN  1754,  Great  Britain  reasoned  and  acted  very  differently. 
She  might  have  said,  these  encroachments  of  France  will 
make  the  factious  colonists  feel  their  dependence  upon  the 
mother  country  a  little  more  than  they  do.  The  acts  of  La 
Guiissoniere,  the  French  governour  of  Canada,  are  not  the  acts 
of  Louis  XV.  I  may  wink  at  these  wrongs,  and  postpone  my 
vengeance,  till  I  have  refreshed  my  wasted  strength  after  the 
disastrous  war  that  I  have  just  terminated ;  an  unpopular  ..nd, 
perhaps,  impolitick  war,  which  has  increased  the  burdens  of 
my  people,  and  their  impatience  in  bearing  them.  If  par- 
45 


354  LESSONS  FROM  HISTORY. 

liament  had  sitten  with  closed  doors,  the  king  might  have  talked 
two  languages,  like  Mr.  Jefferson,  war  and  peace. 

GREAT  BRITAIN  said  nothing  of  the  sort.  She  looked  at 
these  aggressions,  and  she  saw  in  the  whole  aspect  of  affairs, 
as  in  a  looking-glass,  blotches  of  dishonour,  like  leprosy  in  her 
face,  if  she  should  bear  these  wrongs  with  a  tameness  that  she 
foresaw  would  multiply  them.  She  did  not  hesitate — orders 
were  immediately  sent  to  all  the  governours  to  repel  force  by 
force  ;  and  major  Washington,  a  name  sacred  to  honour  and 
patriotism,  was  sent  out  to  repel  the  French  on  the  Ohio. 
Nevertheless,  though  war  was  waged  in  America,  it  was  not  de 
clared  in  Europe.  To  the  spirit  of  Great  Britain,  so  promptly 
and  powerfully  roused  in  our  cause,  we  owe  the  expulsion  of 
the  French  from  Canada  :  an  event  which  has  saved  us  from  a 
war  with  France  to  maintain  our  independence. 

HERE,  then,  are  two  cases,  their  circumstances  not  unlike, 
the  policy  of  Great  Britain  and  Mr.  Jefferson  totally  unlike. 
Compare  them. 


LESSONS  FROM  HISTORY. 

Ne.  IV. 

ROME  was  a  republick  from  its  very  birth.  It  is  true,  for 
two  hundred  and  forty  four  years  it  was  subject  to  kings ;  but 
the  spirit  of  liberty  was  never  more  lofty  at  any  period  of  its 
long  troubled  life,  than  when  Rome  was  governed  by  kings. 
They  were  in  war,  generals  ;  in  peace,  only  magistrates.  For 
seven  hundred  years  Rome  remained  a  republick ;  and  during 
every  minute  of  that  time  the  spirit  of  conquest  excited  and 
ruled  every  Roman  breast. 

FOR  thirty  years  America  has  been  a  republick  ;  and  during 
every  minute  of  those  thirty  years  the  only  question  has  been, 
how  could  she  make  independence  chtafi,  and  not  for-  one 
minute,  how  could  liberty  be  made  durable  and  glorious. 

LIBERTY  has  rocked  the  cradle  and  suckled  the  infancy  of 
both  rcpubiicks.  They  are  different ;  but  why  they  are  different, 


LESSONS  FROM  HISTORY.  355 

and  how  different  they  are,  it  would  take  an  octavo  volume 
to  tell. 

GLORY  was  the  object  of  the  Roman  republick  ;  and  gain  is 
of  ours.  A  Roman  felt  as  if  the  leprosy  had  broken  out  in  his 
cheek,  when  his  country  was  dishonoured ;  and  we  charge  it  in 
our  ledger.  To  Rome  it  cost  blood ;  to  us,  ink  or  tribute. 

SOON  or  late  every  great  nation  will  act  out  its  character. 
As  we  do  not  aspire  to  glory,  we  shall  never  reach  it ;  and  our 
short-sighted  policy,  which  will  not  provide  by  the  expense  of 
to-morrow  for  the  danger  of  the  day  after,  will  be  overwhelmed 
at  last  by  the  destruction  of  the  sordid  interests,  for  which  we 
have  sacrificed  more  precious  ones. 

WITHOUT  forces,  ships,  or  revenue,  we  get  tallow  on  our 
ribs  like  the  oxen,  we  make  honey  like  the  bees,  we  carry 
fleeces  like  the  sheep,  and  we  build  nests  like  the  birds,  not 
for  ourselves,  but  for  others,  for  Buonaparte. 


LESSONS  FROM  HISTORY. 
X°.  A". 

MACHIAVEL,  in  his  history  of  Florence,  has  shewn,  that 
the  rivalship  of  the  great  men  and  the  common  people  is  the 
everlasting  source  of  discord  in  republicks.  In  Rome,  he  says, 
it  led  to  dominion  ;  in  Florence,  to  slavery  and  dependency. 
Whence,  he  asks,  was  the  difference  ?  In  Rome,  every  thing 
was  settled  by  reason  and  expostulation ;  and  in  Florence  by 
the  sword.  In  Rome  they  wished  to  employ  their  great  men ; 
and  in  Florence  to  exterminate  them.  Accordingly,  Rome 
grew  from  little  to  great ;  and  Florence  dwindled  from  great 
to  little. 

THE  disciples  of  the  school  of  equality  would  learn  by  study 
ing  Machiavel,  who  studied  nature,  how  wide  those  men  run 
from  the  principles  of  liberty,  who  carry  those  principles  to 
impracticable  extremes. 


356  LESSONS  FROM  HISTORY. 

BUT  what  avails  federal  truth  ?  If  every  grave-stone  of  a 
departed  repubiick  bore  a  lesson  of  wisdom  and  of  warning, 
the  democrats  would  shut  their  eyes  rather  than  look  upon  it. 
They  have  no  idea  of  any  principles,  except  in  their  extremes, 
when  they  are  no  longer  principles.  \Ve  not  only  seem  to 
choose  our  own  destiny,  but  to  control  it.  By  our  extravagance 
we  render  every  thing  impossible,  but  our  degradation. 

IT  may  please  GOD,  in  the  course  of  his  providence,  to  train 
our  nation  by  misfortune,  and  to  fit  it  for  greatness  by  some 
ages  of  adversity  ;  but  if  we  should  be  left  to  train  ourselves? 
we  must  be  abject  and  base. 


[    357 


BRITISH  ALLIANCE. 

First  publit/ted  in  the  Repertory,  November,  1806. 

JL  HOSE  are  not  the  wisest  of  men,  who  undertake  to  act 
always  by  rule.  In  political  affairs,  there  are  no  more  self- 
conceited  blunderers  than  the  statesmen,  who  affect  to  proceed, 
in  all  cases,  without  regard  to  circumstances,  but  solely  accord 
ing  to  speculative  principles. 

POLITICKS  is  the  science  of  good  sense,  applied  to  publick 
affairs  ;  and,  as  those  are  for  ever  changing,  what  is  wisdom 
to-day  would  be  folly  and,  perhaps,  ruin  to-morrow.  Politicks 
is  not  a  science  so  properly  as  a  business.  It  cannot  have  fixed 
principles,  from  which  a  wise  man  would  never  swerve,  unless 
the  inconstancy  of  men's  views  of  interest  and  the  capricious- 
ness  of  their  tempers  could  be  fixed. 

WE  make  these  remarks,  because  we  are  sometimes  sorry, 
and  sometimes  diverted,  at  the  dispute  about  an  alliance  offen 
sive  and  defensive  with  Great  Britain.  If  ever  there  was  a 
question  of  moonshine,  this  is  one.  There  is  no  more  proba 
bility,  that  Mr.  Jefferson  will  conclude  such  a  treaty,  than  that 
he  will  breakfast  to-morrow  morning  upon  gun-powder ;  and 
it  is  the  prevailing  opinion,  that  he  is  fonder  of  hominy.  We 
might  as  well  speculate  upon  our  probable  condition,  "  if 
u  angels  in  the  form  of  presidents  should  come  down  to  the 
"  federal  city  to  govern  us  ;"  or  who  would  get  or  lose  a  fat 
commission,  if  the  time  had  come  when  Mr.  Jefferson  would 
make  no  other  inquiry  than,  "  is  he  capable,  is  he  honest  ?"  It 
is  a  pity,  that  our  printers  should  argue,  and  contend,  and 
explain  about  any  of  these  mutters  of  moonshine. 

IF  the  time  should  ever  come,  (and  a  new  race  of  men  must 
be  let  down  from  the  sky  before  it  can  come)  when  an  honest 
spirit  of  patriotism  will  have  such  a  question  to  decide,  our 


358  BRITISH  ALLIANCE. 

Catos,  and  our  Ciceros,  and  Favonii  would  say,  the  decision 
must  depend  on  circumstances,  not  on  principles  deduced  a 
priori.  Salus  reifiublicce  sufirema  lex  esto.  To  serve  and  save 
the  commonwealth,  controls  all  maxims. 

IT  is  absurd  to  say,  Washington  made  no  such  treaty,  and, 
therefore,  Mr.  Jefferson  ought  not  to  make  it.  The  times 
never  required  it  of  Washington  ;  and  if  they  had,  that  firm 
and  tempered  soul,  that  heard  reproach  in  the  huzzas  of  popu 
larity,  unless  conscience  sanctioned  its  applause,  would  have 
impelled  him  to  a  treaty  offensive  and  defensive  with  Great 
Britain.  The  heart  swells  and  convulses  at  the  mention  of 
his  name  (in  contrast  even)  with  Jefferson's.  But  even  Jef 
ferson  ought  not  to  be  reproached  for  negotiating  such  a  treaty, 
when  the  circumstances  may  require  it.  We  are  not  disposed 
to  assert,  that  at  present  they  do  require  it.  We  hope,  but 
while  they  negotiate  with  France  we  scarcely  know  'why  we 
hope,  that  British  hearts,  such  stout  hearts  as  our  ever-renown 
ed  ancestors  wore,  will  resist  Buonaparte,  till  his  despotism  has 
spent  its  fury,  or  the  subject  nations  of  Europe  have  recovered 
their  spirit.  Nevertheless,  if  American  independence  could 
not  be  preserved,  without  joining  Great  Britain  to  resist  its 
great  enemy,  the  coward  world's  master,  is  there  an  American 
who  would  object  to  such  an  alliance  ?  An  alliance  of  this  sort 
with  any  nation,  is  an  evil  ;  but  to  say,  there  is  no  condition  of 
our  affairs,  in  which  it  would  not  be  a  less  evil  than  subjuga 
tion,  or  than  the  increased  peril  of  subjugation,  without  such 
a  concert  of  counsels  and  of  efforts,  is  book-wisdom.  It 
is  that  sort  of  folly  and  infatuation,  which  every  nation  that 
now  wears  French  chains  has  fitted  itself  for  slavery  by  first 
adopting. 

WHENEVER,  therefore,  a  miracle  is  about  to  be  publickly 
wrought,  and  Mr.  Jefferson  grows  so  careless  of  his  popu 
larity  and  so  careful  of  his  country,  as  to  act  the  great  part, 
which  the  reduction  of  the  British  power  would  justify  and 
require,  let  not  the  federalists  take  off  from  his  shoulders  to 
their  own  the  reproach  of  suffering  our  liberties  to  be  seized 
by  France  as  a  prey. 


BRITISH  ALLIANCE.  359 

IF  Britain  falls  in  fighting  our  battles,  we  must  fight  our  own ; 
and  what  law  of  sound  policy  or  true  wisdom  is  there,  that  we 
should  choose  to  fight  them,  unassisted  and  alone  ?  We  do 
NOT*  say  that  the  time  has  come — heaven  forbid  it  should  ;  but 
it  may  come,  and  that  speedily,  when  the  opposition  to  a 
British  alliance  would  be  treason  against  American  inde 
pendence.  Let  French  emissaries  cavil,  but  let  Americans 
ponder. 


[    360    .1 


THE  DURATION  OF  FRENCH  DESPOTISM. 

First  published  in  the  Repertory,  Fcbruaiy,  1807. 

JL  H  E  attempt  has  been  repeatedly  made  in  former  commu 
nications  to  shew,  that  the  establishment  of  a  universal  French 
monarchy  has  become  an  exceedingly  probable  event ;  and, 
moreover,  that  if  the  resistance  of  the  British  navy  should, 
from  any  cause  whatever,  be  withdrawn,  the  United  States 
will  become,  in  effect,  a  province  or  department  of  France. 
As,  from  the  nature  of  our  government,  and  the  temper  and 
views  of  the  parties  that  engross  its  powers,  it  is  a  thing  ascer 
tained,  that  we  must  quietly  submit  to  the  domination  of  a 
master,  it  is  a  subject  of  natural,  yet  painful  curiosity  to  in 
quire,  how  long  will  this  dominion  last  ? 

THE  answer  to  this  question  is,  we  confess,  concealed 
among  the  impenetrable  secrets  of  that  Providence,  which 
disposes  of  human  affairs.  Nevertheless,  it  would  belong  to 
the  prudent  foresight  of  our  rulers,  if  our  rulers  were  wise,  to 
discern  evils  in  their  causes,  to  retard  their  progress,  and  to 
alleviate  their  pressure.  And  since  those,  to  whom  we  have 
confided  the  safe  keeping  of  our  liberties,  seem  resolved  to 
renounce  all  dependence  on  ourselves,  and  to  abandon  the  ulti 
mate  disposal  of  them  to  chance  and  to  Buonaparte,  it  may  be 
of  some  assistance  to  our  spirit  of  passive  resignation,  the  only 
sort  of  spirit  that  our  fall  is  likely  to  rouse,  to  create,  if  we 
can,  a  hope,  that  a  destiny  so  near  its  fulfilment,  so  intolerable 
in  degree,  will  be  transient  in  duration.  If,  after  only  half  a 
century  of  subjugation  by  France,  the  empire  of  the  modern 
Tamerlane  should  fall  to  pieces,  the  successors  of  Jefferson 
(and  fifty  years  of  slavery  might  qualify  some  of  our  posterity 
to  be  his  successors,)  would  no  doubt  exult,  that  we  had  recov 
ered  our  liberty,  as  we  lost  it,  without  effort ;  that  we  had  out 
lived  our  conqueror  ;  that,  instead  of  irritating  his  resentment, 
we  had  prudently  endeavoured  to  conciliate  his  favour  by  the 
alacrity  of  eur  submission  and  the  largeness  of  the  tribute, 


DURATION  OF  FRENCH  DESPOTISM.  361 

which  no  expensive  hostile  preparations  had  been  permitted 
to  impair ;  that,  like  the  flexible  willows,  we  had  lain  flat  to 
the  earth,  till  the  storm  had  passed  over  our  heads  ;  whereas, 
if  we  had  stiffened  ourselves  against  its  violence,  we  might 
have  been  uprooted,  like  the  oaks.  And  here  our  rulers  may 
hope  to  dig  from  the  mire  of  our  pubiick  degradation  an  im 
pure  but  copious  treasure  of  future  popularity  for  their  wis 
dom  and  firmness.  They  have  already  extracted  it  from  ma 
terials  scarcely  less  unpromising  and  foul.  • 

IN  political  conjectures  no  guide  is  in  the  least  a  safe  one, 
but  experience  ;  and  each  event  is  so  much  determined  by  its 
own  peculiar  circumstances,  that  analogy  often  fails,  where,  it 
would  seem  on  first  inspection,  similitude  does  not.  The 
Roman  empire  had  its  origin  about  seven  hundred  and  fifty 
years  before  Christ ;  and  lasted  almost  four  hundred  and  eighty 
years  after  Christ.  This  long  period  of  twelve  hundred  and 
thirty  years,  that  the  Roman  state  endured,  may  be  called 
political  longevity;  and,  as  the  French  imitate  the  Romans, 
we  naturally  inquire,  whether  we  are  to  expect  to  have  the 
yoke  of  France  so  long,  or  half  so  long,  upon  our  necks.  There 
was  scarcely  one  of  the  twelve  hundred  years  that  Rome  sub 
sisted,  that  her  dominion  was  not  odious  or  dangerous,  and  the 
greater  part  of  the  time  both  odious  and  dangerous,  to  her 
neighbours.  The  weight  of  her  yoke  was  aggravated  by  the  ar 
rogance  of  her  spirit.  She  not  only  chained  conquered  kings  to 
her  car  of  triumph,  but,  as  her  proconsuls  had  to  practise 
oppression  in  the  provinces,  that  they  might  be  able  to  practise 
bribery  at  Rome,  she  trod  with  the  weight  of  a  war  elephant, 
having  a  castle  on  his  back,  on  the  necks  of  her  subjects. 

IMAGINE  not,  my  countrymen,  a  French  conqueror  will  tread 
lightly,  when  you  are  prostrate.  Wo  to  the  vanquished,  is 
ever  his  maxim.  There  was  no  measure,  there  was  no  end  to  the 
Roman  exactions.  There  is  only  a  small  part  of  the  surplus 
wealth  of  a  state,  that  a  lawful  government  will  touch  ;  and  even 
a  usurper  will  have  an  interest  in  sparing  more  than  he  takes ;  but 
the  rapacity  of  a  conqueror  is  pitiless  and  insatiable.  The  popu 
lace  of  Rome  voted  the  confiscation  of  the  wealth  of  the  king  of 
46 


362  DURATION  OF 

Cyprus ;  and  if  a  patriot  could  have  proved  to  them,  that,  with 
more  regard  to  justice,  there  would  have  been  less  booty, 
would  such  considerations  have  produced  a  mitigation  of  the 
rigour  of  their  decree  ?  A  conqueror  can  take  all ;  and  what 
he  leaves,  he  thinks  mercy. 

IT  is  far  from  being  certain,  that  we  know  any  thing  of  the 
foundation  of  Rome.  But  however  obscure  we  may  deem  its 
origin,  there  can  be  no  doubt,  that  for  several  hundred  years 
its  territory  was  small,  and  the  number  of  its  subjects  less 
than  half  a  million.  Nevertheless,  there  can  be  no  stronger 
proof  of  the  force  of  her  institutions,  than  that  Rome,  even  in 
her  infancy,  and  with  fewer  people  than  Massachusetts  con 
tains,  had  cherished  pretensions  of  superiority  and  formed 
plans  of  aggrandizement,  that  seem  scarcely  credible,  even 
after  they  have  been  accomplished.  They  considered  the 
capital  not  merely  as  a  fortress,  but  it  was  the  "immobile 
saxum,"  the  eminence  on  which  Jupiter  had  commanded  his 
temple  to  be  built,  in  token  of  his  protection  of  his  favourite 
people.  Even  then,  they  called  Rome  the  eternal  city,  the 
metropolis  of  nations.  After  the  burning  of  Rome  by  the 
Gauls,  the  removal  of  the  citizens  to  Veii  was  opposed,  on  the 
ground  that  the  gods  had  promised  the  dominion  of  the  world 
to  the  inhabitants  of  that  spot.  The  people,  who  reverenced 
the  gods,  submitted,  and  proceeded  to  rebuild  their  houses, 
instead  of  occupying  much  better  houses  at  Veii. 

FRANCE,  on  the  contrary,  from  the  first  union  of  the  tribes 
of  the  Franks  under  Clovis,  has  been  a  powerful  state.  It  is 
true,  the  national  character  has  been  ever  in  a  high  degree 
warlike  ;  but  the  individual  character  of  the  Roman  citizens 
was  infinitely  more  so.  Modern  armies,  the  French  as  well 
as  the  rest,  are  formed  of  the  lowest  of  the  populace — the 
Romans  excluded  all  such  from  the  honour  of  bearing  arms. 
In  the  early  ages  of  the  republick,  and,  indeed,  till  the  time  of 
Marius,  the  Roman  soldiers  were  the  proprietors  of  the  land. 
The  prodigious  force  of  a  state,  though  small  in  territory  and 
number  of  people,  whose  citizens  were  all  soldiers,  will  appear 
from  this  fact.  Not  long  after  Rome  was  taken  by  the  Gauls, 


FRENCH  DESPOTISM.  363 

und  had  seemed  to  be  ruined,  the  little  state  of  Latium  revolt 
ed,  and  took  arms  against  the  republick.  Rome  instantly 
arrayed  ten  legions  of  citizens,  an  army  scarcely  less  in  num 
bers,  and  superiour  in  force  and  discipline  to  that,  which  a 
confederacy  of  half  Europe  was  able  to  furnish  under  king 
William  against  Louis  XIV.  At  the  present  day,  such  a  city 
and  territory  as  then  formed  the  Roman  republick,  nay,  mod- 
^ern  Rome  itself  and  the  very  same  territory  would  be  awed 
into  submission  and  kept  in  fear  by  a  regiment  of  foot  and  two 
or  three  s  ;ua.drons  of  horse.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  that 
ten  such  legions  composed  a  more  powerful  army  than  the 
million,  with  which  Xerxes  invaded  Greece,  or  than  all  the 
forces  Darius  could  oppose  to  Alexander  the  great.  It  is  far 
from  certain,  that  Alexander's  own  army  would  have  proved  a 
match  for  the  Romans. 

IF,  then,  we  make  the  comparison,  which  the  vanity  of  the 
great  nation  ardently  desires  to  exhibit,  we  must  not  compare 
Frenchmen  and  Romans,  but  the  modern  empire  of  France 
with  the  old  Roman  empire,  after  the  subversion  of  the  repub 
lick.  There  may  be  some  resemblance  between  the  means 
and  policy  of  the  two  states,  though  there  is  none  in  the  char 
acter  of  the  individuals.  It  is  true,  that  the  French  recruit 
their  army  by  conscriptions  ;  but  it  is  also  true,  that  the  men, 
who  are  not  thus  drafted  into  the  army,  are  mere  unwarlike 
citizens.  It  was  otherwise  in  Rome.  The  nobles  were  all 
generals,  and  the  common  people  the  best  soldiers  in  the 
world. 

BUT,  after  the  civil  wars  of  Marius  and  Sylla,  the  refuse  of 
the  city  of  Rome  were  admitted  into  the  armies,  and  the  own 
ers  of  land  in  Italy  were  expelled  by  force  to  make  donations 
of  farms  to  the  conquering  soldiers.  After  these  events, 
Rome  was  filled  with  a  spiritless  and  abject  multitude.  Instead 
of  the  people,  who  had  looked  with  defiance  upon  the  trium 
phant  banners  of  Hannibal  waving  in  sight  of  their  walls,-  like 
every  other  overgrown  city,  it  trembled  and  submitted  ou 
every  hostile  summons. 


364  DURATION  OF 

ROME  aeouired  her  con  uests  not  only  by  the  superiority  of 
her  institutions,  but  because  those  institutions  hud  made  the 
individual  Romans  superiour  to  their  enemies  ;  but  when  all 
the  nations  around  the  Mediterranean  had  submitted  to  her 
sway,  this  personal  superiority  was  no  longer  to  be  seen  any 
where,  except  in  the  Roman  armies.  They  long  excelled  all 
rivals  and  enemies  in  every  soldierly  qualification  :  and  here, 
perhaps,  the  similitude  between  Rome  and  France  begins. 

THE  French  armies  are,  no  doubt,  superiour  in  Europe ; 
whether  they  outnumber  their  enemies,  or  place  a  much  larger 
proportion  of  cavalry  in  every  field  of  battle,  or  bring  with 
them  more  field  pieces  and  serve  them  more  skilfully  than 
their  enemies.  Whatever  may  be  the  cause  of  this  superiority, 
the  Let  is  indisputable,  that  the  French  are,  at  least,  as  much 
superiour  to  the  Prussians,  as  the  Romans  were  to  the  Mace 
donians. 

OUR  principal  question,  then,  recurs,  assuming  it  for  certain, 
that  the  French  will  establish  a  universal  empire,  how  long 
wili  it  lust  ?  In  a  battle,  the  best  of  the  two  armies  will  win  the 
victory  ;  but,  though  conquests  may  be  won  by  victories,  it  is 
extremely  difficult  to  conceive,  what  means  any  conqueror  can 
possess  long  to  maintain  them.  The  petty  states  bordering  on 
Rome  were  gradually,  in  a  course  of  four  hundred  years,  sub 
dued  by  her  arms ;  nor  was  the  final  conquest  achieved  with 
out  admitting  them  as  allies,  to  be  partners  of  her  dominion  and 
the  associates  of  h«T  glory.  At  length  their  union  with  the 
state  was  as  perfect,  as  that  of  Normandy,  once  a  hostile  pro 
vince,  now  is  with  the  rest  of  France.  But  the  Samnites  had 
more  power,  and  more  implacable  hatred  to  Rome  than  her 
other  foes  ;  and,  therefore,  they  were  nearly  exterminated,  like 
the  insurgents  of  La  Vendee. 

THUS  Italy  was  moulded  into  one  state,  before  Pyrrhus,  and 
after  him  the  Carthaginians,  contended  with  Rome.  Macedo 
nia  was  not  a  great  state,  but  Philip  and  Perseus  had  fine 
armies.  When  these  were  routed,  Macedonia  was  what  Prus 
sia  is  now.  Greece,  like  the  German  empire,  was  an  anarchy 
of  republicks,  which,  because  it  was  easy  to  divide,  it  cost  n© 


FRENCH  DESPOTISM.  >36£ 

trouble  to  subdue,  or  to  keep  in  subjection.  Egypt,  under  the 
Ptolemies,  was  as  despicable  as  the  French  found  it  lately  under 
the  mamelukes.  The  Romans  overthrew  Antiochus  the  great, 
and  seized  all  the  provinces  of  Asia  more  easily  than  their  best 
general  could  take  the  single  cities  of  Carthage  or  Numantia. 

To  preserve  her  conquests,  Rome  built  no  fortresses,  and 
resorted  to  no  other  means  than  armies  and  colonies.  Her 
empire  contained,  Mr.  Gibbon  computes,  about  one  hundred 
and  twenty  millions  of  souls ;  yet  her  army  did  not  exceed 
sixty  legions,  being  less  than  four  hundred  thousand  men. 

THE  French  keep  on  foot  more  soldiers  ;  but,  it  is  to  be  con 
sidered,  their  career  of  conquest  was  begun  only  ten  years  ago. 
They  have  imposed  their  yoke  on  nations,  not  divided  into  a 
hundred  independent  tribes,  like  the  Gauls  and  Spaniards,  not 
barbarians,  like  the  Germans,  not  effeminate,  like  the  Asiaticks, 
but  on  nations,  who  confided  so  entirely  on  their  union,  re 
sources,  and  spirit,  that  they  supposed  it  impossible  they  should 
be  conquered.  The  states  now  subject  to  France  exceed  her 
in  the  number  of  soldiers,  they  still  exceed  her  in  the  number 
of  people.  Their  fall  has  roused  every  passion  of  pride,  fear, 
and  vengeance ;  and  there  is  not  the  least  reason  to  suppose, 
that  the  insolence  and  rapacity  of  the  conqueror  will  suffer 
them  to  subside.  The  difference  of  language,  character,  and 
condition  will  prevent  their  assimilation  into  one  people  for 
many  years. 

LONG  before  such  an  assimilation  could  take  place,  the  mili 
tary  despotism  of  France  will  be  weakened  by  its  own  intem 
perance  and  excess.  As  Buonaparte  reigns  by  uniting  in 
himself  the  command  of  all  the  armies,  whenever  his  death, 
infirmity,  or  adversity  shall  afford  the  opportunity,  may  we 
not  expect,  that  the  command  of  a  great  separate  army  will 
inspire  into  its  chief  the  design  of  independence  ?  For  instance, 
Poland,  and  the  North  of  Germany,  which,  let  it  be  observed, 
the  Romans  could  never  subdue,  could  not  be  holden  without 
a  large  French  army  ;  nor  would  that  army,  stationed  for  many 
years  in  the  same  quarters,  lose  the  occasion  of  a  vacancy  in 
the  government,  to  consider  their  general  as  their  emperour 


366  DURATION  OF 

or  king,  and  to  place  him  on  the  throne  of  the  country  subject 
to  their  military  jurisdiction.  It  is  in  vain  for  Buonaparte  to 
multiply  decrees  of  his  senate,  declaring  his  empire  indivisible 
and  hereditary.  It  is  possible  and,  indeed,  probable,  that  the 
government  of  France  itself  may  after  many  years  of  convul 
sion  become  so. 

BUT  the  vast  countries  overrun  by  the  French  will  not  lose 
their  ancient  honours  and  their  recent  shame ;  and  if  the  de 
scendants  of  their  expelled  princes  should  not  recover  their 
thrones,  if  their  former  subjects  should  not  resume  their  arms, 
and  chase  the  French  out  of  their  territories,  yet  the  ambition 
of  the  French  generals  will  divide  the  empire.  The  conquests 
of  Charlemagne  were  sudden  ;  but  the  nations,  who  were  rather 
confounded  than  subdued,  resumed  their  independence  under 
his  feeble  successors. 

THE  wars  of  the  ancients  were  marked  with  a  peculiar 
animation  and  even  ferocity.  The  weaker  always  dreaded,  and 
generally  suffered  every  extremity  from  the  fury  of  the  victor. 
The  people  were  slaves,  and  all  their  property,  including  lands 
and  houses,  was  booty.  Such  contests  could  not  be  maintained 
with  the  half  hostile,  half  traitorous  languor  of  the  modern 
wars  against  France.  They  needed,  and  they  roused  all  the 
energies  of  all  the  citizens.  But  when  the  war  was  over,  the 
conqueror  stripped  his  captives  as  naked  of  power  as  of  all 
other  possessions.  Hence  it  was,  that  the  Romans  found  it 
so  extremely  difficult  to  subdue  enemies,  who  fought  to  the 
last  with  all  the  energy  of  despair ;  and  hence  too  it  was,  that, 
when  once  effectually  conquered,  we  hear  no  more  of  their 
resistance.  The  Romans  were  not  greatly  troubled  with  in 
surrections,  except  of  their  armies. 

IT  is,  however,  the  law,  as  well  as  the  motive  of  modern 
conquests,  to  preserve  rather  than  to  destroy.  The  subjects 
change  masters  ;  they  are  oppressed  by  military  contributions ; 
but  they  are  not  wholly  stripped.  It  is  scarcely  possible,  that 
the  mildest  exercise  of  a  conqueror's  rights  should  not  enrage 
them,  or  that  any  modern  mitigation  of  them  should  wholly 
disarm  their  vengeance. 


FRENCH  DESPOTISM.  367 

IT  ought  to  be  observed,  too,  as  a  consequence  of  the  last 
remark,  that,  in  the  times  of  the  Roman  emperours,  the  popu 
lation  of  every  country  was  in  a  great  measure  composed  of 
slaves ;  that  of  Europe,  which  France  has  overrun,  is  much 
sounder.  Rome,  soon  after  the  expulsion  of  the  kings,  was 
filled  with  citizens,  who  were  all  soldiers ;  but,  in  the  time  of 
the  emperours,  its  vast  walls  were  crowded  with,  perhaps,  a 
million  of  slaves,  who  were  all  abject  and  base.  As  this  was 
the  case  in  Rome,  it  was  still  worse  in  Alexandria,  Antioch, 
Nicomedia,  Carthage,  Sirmium,  Aquileia,  Ravenna,  and  Na 
ples.  A  degenerate  race  of  conquerors  could  keep  slaves  in 
subjection. 

BUT  the  people  of  Germany  are,  at  least,  as  warlike  as  those 
of  France:  It  is,  therefore,  extremely  difficult  to  conceive, 
what  means  the  conqueror  possesses  or  can  employ  always  to 
keep  his  equals  in  his  chains.  Their  princes  may  lose  their 
thrones  ;  but  we  cannot  resist  the  opinion,  that,  ultimately,  the 
nations  will  recover  their  independence. 

SUPPOSING,  then,  that  the  French  empire  is,  in  its  very 
structure  and  principles,  a  temporary  sway,  that  the  causes, 
whatever  they  may  be,  which  have  made  its  action  irresistible, 
produce  and  prolong  a  re-action  sufficient  in  the  end  to  coun 
teract  their  impulse,  ought  we  not,  as  men,  as  patriots,  to  hope, 
that  Great  Britain  may  be  able  to  protract  her  resistance,  till 
that  re-action  shall  be  manifested  ?  And,  as  mere  idle  wishes 
are  unbecoming  the  wise  and  the  brave,  ought  not  the  Ameri 
can  nation  to  make  haste  to  establish  such  a  navy  as  will  limit 
the  conqueror's  ravages  to  the  dry  land  of  Europe  ?  We  have 
more  than  a  million  tons  of  merchant  shipping  ;  more,  much 
more,  than  queen  Elizabeth  of  England,  and  Philip  II.  of 
Spain,  both  possessed,  in  the  time  of  the  famous  armada.  We 
may  be  slaves  in  soul,  and  possess  the  means  of  defence,  with 
out  daring  to  use  them.  We  do  possess  them,  and,  if  our 
spirit  bore  proportion  to  those  means,  in  a  very  few  years  our 
ships  could  stretch  a  ribbon  across  every  harbour  of  France, 
and  say  with  authority  to  the  world's  master  stop  ;  here  thy 
proud  course  is  stayed. 


68 


DANGEROUS  POWER  OP  FRANCE.     N°.  IV. 

SUBJECT    RESUMED. 
Fffst  pubtislied  in  the  Repcrtonj^  March,  1808. 

W  HEN  men  indulge  their  passions,  they  seldom  stop  where 
they  should  :  excess  breeds  more  excess.  Party  hatred  sur 
passes  all  other,  as  if  fiends  from  the  bottomless  pit  had  breath 
ed  their  fell  inspiration  into  the  human  heart.  Their  virulence 
strikes  the  understanding  blind,  and  blindness  augments  their 
virulence,  till  a  civil  war  rages  in  the  state,  and,  without  resort 
to  arms,  quenches  half  the  joys  and  all  the  charities  of  life. 
In  this  condition,  liberty  is  ejected  from  her  temple,  and  strip 
ped  of  her  ornaments  and  her  charms.  And  as  impunity  is 
not  often  loifg  indulged  to  habitual  vice  and  folly,  whether  in 
a  publick  or  an  individual,  the  enemy  of  the  state  seldom 
neglects 'the  inviting  opportunity  to  make  a  fatal  progress, 
while  the  attention  of  the  magistrate,  who  ought  to  be  our 
common  parent  and  protector,  is  wholly  engrossed  by  a  con 
test  with  his  enemy.  The  chief  ruler  is  in  that  case  degraded 
from  his  exalted  station.  He  is  a  man,  and,  when  such  pas 
sions  blind  him,  a  weak  and  bad  man  too,  a  magistrate  for  dis 
order,  and  our  guardian  to  betray  us. 

IN  these  observations  we  should  suppose  every  man  would 
concur,  who  is  capable  of  understanding  them  ;  and,  in  this 
great  crisis,  we  should  think  he  could  apply  them  too.  Possibly, 
so  predominant  are  party  feelings,  those  will  refuse  assent  to 
their  truth,  who  can  foresee  their  just  political  application. 
Nevertheless,  let  us  presume  to  apply  them. 

MR.  Jefferson  has  wrapped  up  all  dipiomutick  communica 
tions  from  France  in  mystery.  Yet  we  believe  it  is  unjust,  on 
that  account,  to  accuse  him  of  a  partial  fondness  for  Buo 
naparte.  Love  Buonaparte  !  No  human  being  ever  loved 
him.  Love  the  crocodile  j  love  the  shark,  who  feeds  upon  the 
dead  j  or  the  royal  tyger  of  Bengal,  who-snatches  your  children 


DANGEROUS  POWER  OF  FRANCE.  369 

from  the  cradle,  and  cracks  their  bones  in  your  sight.  Mr.  Jef 
ferson  may  fear  Buonaparte,  but  he  cannot  love  him.  Nor  is 
it  possible,  that  he  should  wish  to  give  him  power  in  the  United 
States.  From  the  inestimable  sacrifices  he  made  to  get  his 
present  power,  we  may  be  certain,  that  he  loves  it.  Nor  can 
we  admit,  that  Mr.  Jefferson,  a  veteran,  and,  many  choose  to 
say,  an  oracle  in  politicks,  can  be  blind  to  the  formidable  dan 
ger  of  the  present  day.  He  knows,  that  France  is  not  now  in 
the  political  world  what  she  was,  when  he  was  a  pubiick  minis 
ter  to  Louis  XVI.  Excepting  England,  she  has  absorbed 
that  world  into  her  own  limits.  A  change  of  fourteen  cen 
turies  has  passed  over  her  head.  She  has  gone  back  so  much, 
and  Attila,  "  the  scourge  of  God,"  has  come  again. 

MR.  Jefferson  knows,  that  there  is  but  one  obstacle  to  the 
progress  of  French  power,  and  that  is  the  hated  British  navy. 
The  immortal  spirit  of  the  wood  nymph  liberty,  dwells  only  in 
the  British  oak.  Suppose  that  navy  destroyed,  would  our 
liberty  survive  a  week  ?  The  wind  of  the  blow  that  should  des 
troy  British  independence,  would  strike  our  own  senseless  to 
the  earth.  Boastful  and  vain  as  we  are,  the  very  thought  of 
independence  would  take  flight  from  our  hearts. 

WE  have  a  curiosity  to  know,  whether  Mr.  Jefferson  and 
Mr.  Madison  do  really  believe  we  could  support  our  liberty,  if 
Great  Britain  had  lost  hers.  Without  intending  to  indulge  in 
the  too  common  rudeness  and  disrespect  of  party  addresses,  we 
should  deem  it  a  signal  work  of  patriotism,  if,  by  any  thing  we 
shall  offer,  we  could  induce  those  gentlemen  to  examine,  with 
the  precision  and  acuteness  of  mind  that  they  are  allowed  to 
possess,  this  awful  question  for  America,  If  Great  Britain  falls, 
will  not  America  fall  ?  Shall  we  not  lie  in  the  dust  at  the  con 
queror's  foot,  and  with  servile,  affected  joy  receive  our  chains 
without  resistance. 

IT  will  be  ever  fashionable  to  boast  of  the  invincible  spirit 
of  freemen,  as  long  as  power  is  to  be  won  by  flattery.  We 
remark,  that  some  speakers  in  congress  assume  it  as  a  thing 
impossible,  that  an  invading  foe  could  make  any  progress  in 
our  country.  Others,  in  party  opposition  to  them,  either  blind 
47 


'S7&  DANGEROUS  POWER 

to  the  truth,  or  afraid  to  speak  it,  readily  assent  to  the  asser 
tion,  that  the  United  States  are  unconquerable.  Thus  a  dan 
gerous  delusion  acquires  not  only  a  plausible  authority,  but  it 
seems  to  be  a  violation  of  the  sanctity  of  the  national  faith  to 
expose  it. 

THIS  is  no  time  to  trifle — let  it  be  exposed. 

IF  Great  Britain  were  conquered,  Buonaparte  could  have  her 
fifteen  hundred  ships  ;  if  only  humbled,  he  could  have  the  ships 
of  all  the  rest  of  Europe  to  transport  an  army  under  one  of  his 
lieutenants  to  our  shores,  as  numerous  as  he  might  think 
necessary  to  ensure  conquest.  Power  seldom  long  wants  means. 
He  could  send  over  twenty  thousand,  and  more,  if  wanted,  of 
his  dismounted  horsemen,  with  their  saddles,  bridles,  and 
equipments.  He  would  not  fail  to  secure  horses  from  our 
islands,  such  as  Long  Island,  and. the  extensive  necks  and  pro 
montories,  which  could  not  be  defended  against  him. 

BEING  master  of  the  sea,  he  could  make  large  and  frequent 
detachments  from  his  camp  to  defenceless  regions,  which  he 
would  strip.  To  this  let  it  be  added,  the  American  army, 
if  we  should  have  an  army,  being  concentred  to  some  well- 
chosen  mountainous  place,  would,  of  course,  leave  the  cities  a 
prey. 

THUS  it  cannot  be  doubted,  that  he  would  have  horses  to 
remount  his  cavalry.  Suppose  a  numerous  French  army,  hav 
ing  two  fifths  of  its  force  cavalry,  with  all  the  formidable 
thousands  of  light  artillery  that  brought  Austria  and  Prussia  to 
his  feet  in  a  day.  Would  the  American  militia  face  this  army  ? 
Suppose  they  do  not — then  our  cities,  our  whole  coast,  and  all 
the  open  cultivated  country  are  French,  would  the  millions 
on  and  near  the  coast  take  flight  to  the  mountains  ?  Could 
they  subsist,  or  would  they  remain  long  unmolested  there  ? 
Mountains,  when  no  equal  army  was  in  the  field,  never  did  stop 
tli£  soldiers  of  Buonaparte. 

LET  us  come  back,  then,  to  our  militia  army,  since  we  are 
obliged  to  see,  that  the  French  would  effectually  conquer  our 
country,  if  our  army  should  not  be  able  to  check  their  rapid 
progress.  Could  we  collect  an  army  ?  On  all  the  coast  would 


OF  FRANCE.  371 

be  terrour,  busy  concern  to  hide  property,  and  to  shelter 
women,  helpless  age,  and  infancy.  The  seaports  would  not 
only  retain  their  own  men,  but  call  in  those  of  the  neighbour 
ing  country  to  defend  them.  Probably,  they  would  ask  an 
addition  of  troops  from  government. 

IT  would,  therefore,  be  a  difficult  and  very  slow  work,  to 
collect  a  militia  army  equal  in  numbers  to  the  French.  Near 
fifty  thousand  men  were  sent  to  Egypt,  and  as  many  more  to 
St.  Domingo.  Had  either  of  those  armies  landed  here,  could 
we  have  faced  them  with  an  equal  force,  equal  in  numbers  ? 
We  think  not. 

LET  Mr.  Jefferson  ask  any  skilful  old  continental  officer, 
whether  our  army  of  militia  would  push  bayonet  with  the 
French.  No  military  man  would  say,  that  our  militia  would 
stand  the  tug  of  war,  and  defeat  the  French. 

DID  we  not,  cries  some  wordy  patriot,  contend  with  the 
British  ?  The  answer  would  be  long,  to  make  it  as  decisive  as 
we  think  it  really  is.  The  British  were  cooped  up  in  Boston 
a  year.  In  1778,  sir  William  Howe  had  only  four  or  five 
hundred  cavalry,  and  he  moved  as  if  he  was  more  afraid  of  our 
beating  him,  than  resolved  to  beat  us. 

AT  Long  Island,  Washington  was  totally  defeated,  and  might 
have  been  made  prisoner  with  his  whole  army.  He  was  not 
pursued.  In  the  third  year  of  the  war,  his  troops,  and  even 
the  militia  of  the  states  in  the  scene  of  the  war,  had  become 
considerably  disciplined.  It  is  not  denied,  that  with  three 
years  preparation  we  could  have  an  army  ;  but  we  make  no 
preparation  ;  and  unless  we  enlist  our  men,  the  parade  of 
militia  is  a  serious  buffoonery.  When  sir  William  Howe 
forced  our  men  from  the  field,  he  had  no  cavalry,  and  our  men 
could  flee  faster  than  his  could  pursue.  But  the  French — 
experience  has  shewn,  that,  when  they  win  battles,  they  decide 
the  war.  Myriads  of  cavalry  press  upon  the  fugitives,  and  in 
half  a  day  the  defence  of  a  nation  is  captive  or  slain.  Defeat 
is  irremediable  destruction. 

WOULD  our  stone  walls  stop  their  horse  ?  Then  the  pioneers 
would  pull  down  those  walls.  Shooting  from  behind  fences 


3r2  DANGEROUS  POWER 

would  not  stop  an  army ;  nor  would  our  militia  venture  on  a 
measure  that  would  be  fatal :  the  numerous  and  widely  ex 
tended  flanking  parties  would  cut  off  all  such  adventurers  to  a 
man.  No,  Mr.  Jefferson,  do  not  lull  your  fears  to  sleep,  do 
not  aggravate  our  publick  dangers  by  a  mistake  of  our  situa 
tion.  There  are  times,  and  the  case  of  invasion  would  be  a 
time,  when  the  mistakes  of  our  rulers  could  not  be  committed 
with  impunity. 

WITH  an  army  less  than  two  hundred  thousand,  but  with 
double  the  common  proportion  of  cavalry,  Buonaparte  has  over 
run  the  German  empire,  Austria,  Prussia,  and  all  continental 
Europe  from  the  Adriatick  to  the  Baltick,  rich,  populous,  and 
computed  formerly  to  arm  a  million  of  soldiers. 

THE  democratick  gazettes  have  uniformly  maintained,  that 
Buonaparte's  unvaried  success  was  not  owing  to  chance,  but 
to  the  real,  irresistible  superiority  of  the  French  arms,  to  their 
newly  improved  tacticks,  and  to  the  impetuosity  of  their  attack. 
All  this,  rare  as  our  agreement  with  the  democrats  may  be,  all 
this  we  believe ;  and  we  solemnly  warn  Mr.  Jefferson  not  lightly 
to  reject  the  long  habitual  opinion  of  his  party.  We  firmly, 
though  unwillingly  believe,  that  as  the  old  Romans,  were 
superiour  to  their  enemies,  so  the  French  are,  at  least,  as  much 
superiour  to  their  enemies  by  land.  The  vast  extent  of  both 
empires,  Roman  and  French,  grew  out  of  this  superiority. 

HENCE  we  conclude,  that,  if  our  militia  army  should  fight 
a  battle,  they  would  lose  it.  They  would  inevitably  lose  it,  and 
the  loss  of  the  battle  would  be  the  loss  of  the  country.  The 
French  would  hold  the  coast  by  their  fleet,  and  the  interiour 
by  their  army.  Be  it  remembered  too,  that  Canada  would  be 
French,  if  Great  Britain  should  be  subdued,  and  the  Floridas 
and  Louisiana,  though  she  should  not.  Where,  then,  would 
be  the  security  of  the  mountains  ?  Much  dreadful  experience, 
and  more  dreadful  fears  would  follow  the  conquest,  till  at 
length,  like  the  rest  of  the  world,  we  should  enjoy  the  quiet  of 
despair  and  the  sleep  o£  slavery.  Popularity,  as  dear  perhaps 
as  liberty,  will  be  sought  no  more ;  and  we  shall  place  our 


OF  FRANCE.  373. 

happiness,  if  slaves  may  talk  of  happiness,  in  the  smiles,  or, 
still  better,  in  the  neglect  of  a  master. 

WE  have  purposely  omitted  an  infinity  of  proofs  in  corrobo- 
ration  of  our  melancholy  conclusion,  that,  in  case  of  a  French 
invasion,  the  country  would  be  literally  conquered.  We  should 
tamely  accept  a  Corsican  prince  for  a  king,  and,  in  virtue  of 
our  alliance  with  France,  agree  by  treaty  to  maintain  French 
troops  enough  to  keep  down  insurrection.  Far  be  it  from  us 
to  believe,  that  our  fellow  citizens  in  the  militia  are  not  brave. 
Their  very  bravery,  we  apprehend,  would  ensure  their  defeat : 
they  would  dare  to  attempt  what  militia  cannot  achieve.  Nor 
let  the  heroick  speech-makers  pretend,  that  our  citizens  would 
swear  to  live  free  or  die  ;  and  that  they  would  resist,  till  the 
country  was  depopulated  or  emancipated.  There  is  no  founda 
tion  in  human  nature  for  this  boast.  The  Swiss  were  free, 
and  loved  their  liberty  as  well  as  men  ever  did  ;  yet  they  are 
enslaved,  and  quiet  in  their  chains.  Experience  shews,  that 
men  are  glad  to  survive  the  loss  of  liberty.  They  must  be 
mad,  to  continue  to  resist  the  power,  that,  on  trial,  has  been 
found  superiour  and  irresistible.  Myriads  of  persons,  we  see, 
are  glad,  on  pecuniary  encouragement,  to  go  into  the  army, 
where  every  democrat  will  insist  there  cannot  be  liberty,  be 
cause  there  is  restraint. 

OUR  readers  might  soon  be  tired,  if  they  are  not  already, 
but  we  should  never  be  tired  ourselves  to  diversify  our  argu 
ment  to  prove,  in  contradiction  to  the  groundless  and  perhaps 
treacherous  pretensions  of  faction,  that  our  country  is  absolute 
ly  defenceless  against  Buonaparte,  when  master  of  the  sea. 
We  could  urge,  that  the  French  troops  marched  through 
countries  having  three  or  four  times  as  many  people  as  the 
United  States,  with  the  quietness  of  a  procession.  Does  he 
not  confide  in  the  conquest  of  Great  Britain,  if  he  could  only 
reach  the  shore  with  his  troops  ?  Yet  Great  Britain  has  twice 
our  population,  in  a  narrow  compass  too,  and  nearly  one  hun 
dred  times  our  military  force. 

WITH  so  many  proofs,  after  so  decisive  experience  of  the 
resistless  march  of  the  French,  is  it  not  presumption,  folly, 


374,  DANGEROUS  POWER 

madness  to  suppose  we  could  be  free,  if  France  had  the  British 
fleet.  To  our  minds  the  proof  is  demonstration. 

WE  do  not  urge  this  fearful  conclusion,  because  we  despise 
our  countrymen,  or  wish  to  see  America  dishonoured.  Far, 
far  from  our  hearts  are  such  abominable  wishes.  Look,  look, 
fellow  countrymen,  as  we  do,  to  your  dear,  innocent  children. 
Ask  your  hearts,  if  they  can  bear  so  racking  a  question,  whether 
a  shallow  confidence  in  our  unarmed  security  against  Buona 
parte,  in  case  Great  Britain  should  fall,  does  not  tend  to  devote 
them  to  the  rage  of  a  restless,  unappeasable  tyrant.  We  trem 
ble  at  the  thought,  that  our  own  dear  children  will  be  in  Buon 
aparte's  conscription  for  St.  Domingo,  in  case  the  Gallican 
policy  of  our  government  should  be  pursued,  till  its  natural 
tendencies  are  accomplished*. 

To  fools  we  say  nothing,  nothing  to  traitors,  with  whom  a 
troubled  republick  is  always  cursed  ;  but  we  would  ask  Mr. 
Jefferson,  we  would  ask  all  sober  citizens,  whether,  if  the 
danger  of  an  invasion  be  considered  as  really  impending,  we 
ought  not  to  have  an  army  to  meet  it  ?  We  ask  further,  would  a 
raw  army,  raised  when  the  foe  is  on  our  shores,  be  fit  to  oppose 
him  ?  Would  you  stake  the  life  of  our  liberty  upon  the  resist 
ance  that  paper  could  make  against  iron  ? 

No,  every  man  would  say,  that,  if  we  are  to  fight  an  invad 
ing  enemy,  sixty  thousand  strong,  in  1810  or  1812,  we  have 
no  time  to  lose  in  raising  an  army,  by  enlistment,  stronger  than 
the  invaders,  and  training  them  to  an  equality  of  subordination, 
discipline,  and  confidence  in  themselves  and  their  officers. 
Such  an  army  with  cavalry,  artillery,  engineers,  Sec.  would  be 
too  expensive  for  our  means,  or  for  the  temper  of  our  citizens, 
who  have  been  studiously  taught  to  hold  taxes  as  grievances 
and  wrongs.  The  thing,  we  grant,  is  impossible.  To  depend 
on  a  militia  not  enlisted  nor  disciplined  as  before  mentioned, 
is  madness. 

IT  follows,  then,  we  think,  irresistibly,  demonstratively,  that 
our  single  hope  of  security  is  in  the  triumphs  of  the  British 

*  The  writer  could  scarcely  speak  of  his  children,  during  the  last  few  months  oflm  life, 
without  expressing  his  deep  apprehensions  of  their  future  servitude  to  the  French. 


OF  FRANCE,  375 

navy.  While  that  rides  mistress  of  the  ocean,  the  French  can  no 
more  pass  it  to  attack  us,  than  they  could  ford  the  bottomless  pit. 

HITHERTO  we  have  designedly  avoided  all  party  topicks. 
We  have  gone  upon  the  supposition,  that  the  democrats  do  not 
wish  their  children  slaves  to  Buonaparte,  any  more  than  our 
own.  We  take  it  for  clear,  that  it  is  of  more  national  impor 
tance  to  be  free,  than  to  carry  coffee  to  Amsterdam.  If,  then, 
we  have  so  great  interests  depending,  we  cannot  but  wonder, 
that  Mr.  Jefferson  should  endanger  them  for  the  sake  of  minor 
interests,  which  are,  in  comparison,  but  as  the  small  dust  of 
the  balance.  He  professes  to  aim  his  measures  at  the  destruc 
tion  of  the  British  "  tyranny  of  the  seas ;"  and  he  seems  to 
exult  in  the  thought,  that  they  are  adequate  to  his  end.  God 
forbid  that  they  should  be  !  God,  of  his  mercy,  forbid,  that, 
after  having  led  our  forefathers  by  the  hand,  and,  as  it  were, 
by  his  immediate  power  planted  a  great  nation  in  the  wilder 
ness,  he  should  permit  the  passions  or  the  errours  of  our 
chief  to  plunge  us  into  ruin  and  slavery.  Shall  this  French 
magog  be  allowed  to  pluck  our  star  from  its  sphere,  and  quench 
its  bright  orb  in  the  sea  ? 

IT  is  apprehended,  that  Mr.  Jefferson  is  entirely  convinced, 
that  Great  Britain  is  now  making  her  expiring  efforts.  It  is 
said,  he  holds  it  impossible,  that  she  should  resist  Buonaparte 
two  years  longer.  Then  let  him  wear  sackcloth.  Let  him 
gather  a  colony,  and  lead  them  to  hide  from  a  conqueror's 
pursuit  in  the  trackless  forests  near  the  sources  of  the  Mis 
souri.  Frost,  hunger,  and  poverty  will  not  gripe  so  hard  as 
Buonaparte. 

BUT,  if  he  expects  the  speedy  destruction  of  Great  Britain, 
what  motive  has  he  to  exert  himself  to  hasten  it.  He  knows 
mankind,  he  knows  Buonaparte  too  well  to  hope,  that  the 
tyrant's  hand  will  be  the  lighter  for  that  merit.  That  bosom, 
so  notoriously  steeled  against  pity,  will  not  melt  to  friendship. 
Among  the  infinite  diversity  of  a  madman's  dreams,  was  there 
ever  one  so  extravagant,  as  that  a  republick  might  safely  trust 
its  liberty  to  the  sentiment  of  a  master  ?  Every  moon-beam  at 
Washington  must  have  shot  frenzy,  if  such  a  motive  among 


376  DANGEROUS  POWER 

politicians  could  have  influenced  action.  If  liberty  should  fall, 
as  it  will,  if  France  prevails,  at  least,  let  us  have  the  con 
solation  to  say,  our  hands  have  not  assisted  in  the  assassina 
tion. 

BUT  is  it  so  very  clear,  that  Great  Britain  will  fall  in  the 
conflict  ?  A  youthful  conqueror,  scorning  all  doubts  of  the  un 
limited  efficiency  of  his  power,  has  prohibited  the  use  of  Bri 
tish  manufactures,  and  all  intercourse  even  of  neutrals  with 
her  merchants.  He  expects  to  cut  off  the  roots  of  her  great 
ness,  or  to  see  her  wither,  like  a  girdled  oak,  and  her  tall  trunk 
nodding  to  its  fall,  making  it  dangerous  to  approach  her.  He 
seems,  like  many  of  our  politicians,  to  suppose,  that  her  great 
ness  is  factitious,  and  that  her  foreign  trade  is  the  aliment  and 
life  of  its  support.  For  our  part,  we  deem  her  grandeur  intrin- 
sick,  the  fair  fruit  of  her  constitution,  her  justice,  her  arts,  and 
her  magnanimity.  But,  as  we  mean  to  avoid  contested  points, 
we  restrain  ourselves  to  consider  the  eft'ect  of  Buonaparte's 
decrees  to  ruin  her.  He  is  neither  omnipotent  nor  omni 
scient.  Of  course,  we  imagine,  that  distance,  art,  avarice,  and 
necessity  will  conspire  to  elude  his  vindictive  blockading  orders, 

IF  he  succeeds,  we  hope  he  will  not  conquer  England.  If 
he  fails,  as  we  trust  he  will  fail,  his  attempt  will  furnish  her 
with  augmented  means  of  a  perpetual  resistance.  British  goods 
will  be  clandestinely  admitted  into  the  continent,  after  they 
have  been  charged  with  British  duties.  The  scarcity  will 
augment  the  price,  so  that  the  duty  will  not  prevent  the  sale  ; 
on  the  contrary,  there  will  be  the  strongest  allurements  of 
profit.  The  French  government  will  be  so  far  from  able  to 
suppress  the  traffick,  that  we  are  rather  to  expect  it  will  be 
itself  under  the  necessity  of  occasionally  relaxing  the  rigour 
of  its  decrees.  After  having  for  some  time  contemplated  the 
effect  of  Buonaparte's  decrees,  we  have  gradually  subdued 
our  fears  of  the  impoverishment  of  Great  Britain  from  their 
operation. 

NOR  let  Mr.  Jefferson  imagine,  that  our  country  can  derive 
any  temporary  advantage  from  our  co-operation  in  his  decrees. 
He  disdains  to  wait  for  the  slow  progress  of  art  to  accomplish 


OF  FRANCE.  377 

his  purposes.  He  now  expects  to  win  allies  only  by  terrour. 
Let  them  hate,  if  they  do  but  fear,  is  his  maxim.  If  Great 
Britain  enforces  her  countervailing  orders,  our  neutrality  can 
not  longer  assist  to  supply  his  wants.  Enraged  to  be  thus 
met  by  Great  Britain,  nothing  remains  but  for  him  to  intimi 
date  Mr.  Jefferson  into  an  alliance.  The  world's  master 
allows  no  neutrality.  In  fact  there  are  no  neutrals.  The 
maritime  law  supposes  a  society  of  nations  bound  together  by 
reciprocal  rights  and  duties.  That  society  is  dissolved ;  and  it 
is  chimerical,  if  not  unwarrantable,  for  the  United  States  to 
claim  singly  the  aggregated  and  supposed  residuary  rights 
devolved  upon  us  by  the  departed  nations.  The  old  system  is 
gone  ;  and  it  is  a  mockery,  or  worse,  for  one  nation  to  affect  to 
represent  a  dozen  once  independent  states,  now  swallowed  up 
by  a  conqueror.  Ambition  will  violate  our  moonshine  rights  ; 
and  if  we  submit  to  his  decrees,  we  ourselves  violate  our  neu 
tral  duties.  What  tyranny  will  do  in  contempt  of  right,  self- 
preservation  permits  the  other  belligerent  to  do  in  strict 
conformity  with  it.  Where,  then,  is  neutrality  ?  Let  us  be 
ashamed  of  a  petulent  strife  about  lost  and  irrecoverable  pre 
tensions.  It  is  a  sort  of  posthumous  wisdom,  that,  when  the 
publick  dangers  thicken,  always  looks  back,  and  never  looks 
round  our  actual  position.  Why  should  we  not  look  our  con 
dition  in  the  face  ?  The  question  is  not  about  the  profits  of 
navigation,  but  the  security  of  our  existence. 

WHY  do  our  publick  men  wilfully  blind  themselves,  and 
regard  no  dangers  but  such  as  they  apprehend  from  thefrhos- 
tility  of  party  ?  The  earth  we  tread  on  holds  the  bones  of  the 
deceased  patriots  of  the  revolution.  Why  will  the  sacred 
silence  of  the  grave  be  broken  ?  Will  the  illustrious  shades 
walk,  forth  into  pubiick  places,  and  audibly  pronounce  a  warn 
ing  to  convince  us,  that  the  independence,  for  which  they  bled, 
is  in  danger  ?  No  ;  without  a  miracle,  the  exercise  of  our  rea- 
v  son  would  convince  us,  that  our  independence  is  in  danger 
from  France  ;  and,  if  Great  Britain  falls  by  force,  terrour  alone 
would  bring  us  into  subjection. 
48 


378  DANGEROUS  POWER  OF  FRANCE. 

WE  do  not  love  or  respect  our  country  less  than  those,  who 
inconsiderately  boast  of  its  invincible  strength  and  prowess. 
As  the  destroyer  of  nations  has  enslaved  Europe,  and  as  only 
one  nation,  Great  Britain,  has  hindered  his  coming  here  to 
conquer  us,  they  have  no  ears  to  hear,  they  have  no  hearts  to 
feel  for  our  country,  who  would  break  down  that  obstacle  and 
let  him  in. 

THIS  is  not  a  party  effusion  ;  it  proceeds  from  hearts  that 
are  ready  to  burst  with  anxiety  on  the  prospect  of  the  political 
insanity  that  seems  ready  to  join  the  foe.  It  is  republican 
suicide,  it  is  treachery  to  the  people,  to  make  them  an  inno 
cent  sacrifice  to  the  passions  of  our  rulers. 

LET  Mr.  Jefferson  avail  himself  of  the  power,  that  his 
weight  with  his  own  party  gives  him,  and  stop  the  progress 
of  our  fate.  We  do  not  ask  him  to  go  to  war  with  France. 
Consult  prudence,  and  renounce  the  affection  of  that  false 
honour,  which  has  been  of  late  so  much  upon  our  lips.  He 
will  find  the  federalists  love  their  country  better  than  their 
party.  Let  there  be  peace,  merely  peace,  we  say  nothing  of 
alliance  with  Great  Britain  ;  and  if  our  champion  falls  in  the 
combat,  let  us  not,  when  we  perish,  deplore  the  fatal  folly  of 
having  contributed  to  hasten  his  and  our  destruction. 


Library 


THE  DANGERS 

OF 

AMERICAN   LIBERTY. 

WRITTEN  IN  THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  YEAR  1805. 
Norv  Jlrst  published. 

IN  February  1805,  the  following  sketch  of  a  dissertation  on  "  The  Dangers  of  American 
Liberty,"  accompanied  with  a  short  familiar  letter +,  was  sent  by  Mr.  Ames  to  a  friend  for 
his  perusal.  It  was  soon  returned,  for  the  purposes  expressed  in  the  author's  letter,  with 
a  hope  that  he  would  re-consider,  revise,  and  complete  it ;  and  especially  that  he  would 
fulfil  his  original  design  of  applying  his  argument  in  a  manner,  that  would  lead  the  peo 
ple  to  preserve  as  long  as  possible  the  civil  blessings  they  enjoy,  and  not  sacrifice  them  to 
delusive  theories. 

It  does  not  appear,  that  the  author  ever  resumed  his  subject,  or  that  the  manuscript  was 
opened  after  that  period,  until  since  his  death.  Yet  it  is  thought  not  improper  to  gratify 
the  publick  with  a  work,  which,  though  quite  imperfect,  would,  if  it  hud  been  finished, 
have  been  found  deeply  interesting  to  its  welfare. 


Sic  tibi  jjersuade,  me  dies  et  nodes  nUdl  aliud  agere,  nihil  curare,  nisi  ut  mti  cives  salvi  Uteri. 
f]iie  sint.  Ep.  Famil.  1.  24. 

Be  assurer?,  therefore,  that  wither  day  nor  night  have  I  any  cares,  any  labours,  but  fur  the 
safety  and  freedom  of  my  fellow  citizens. 

A  AM  not  positive,  that  it  is  of  any  immediate  use  to  our 
country,  that  its  true  friends  should  better  understand  one 
another ;  nor  am  I  apprehensive,  that  the  crudities,  which  my 
ever  hasty  pen  confides  to  my  friends,  will  essentially  mislead 
their  opinion  in  respect  either  to  myself  or  to  publick  affairs. 
At  a  time  when  men  eminently  wise  cherish  almost  any  hopes, 
however  vain,  because  they  choose  to  be  blind  to  their  fears, 
it  would  be  neither  extraordinary  nor  disreputable  for  me  to 
mistake  the  degree  of  maturity,  to  which  our  political  vices 
have  arrived,  nor  to  err  in  computing  how  near  or  how  far  off 
we  stand  from  the  term  of  their  fatal  consummation. 

I  FEAR,  that  the  future  fortunes  of  our  countiy  no  longer 
depend  on  counsel.     We  have  persevered  in  our  errours  too 

+  The  following  is  the  letter  of  Mr.  Ames,  mentioned  above : 
My  dear  Friend, 

YOU  will  see  the  deficiencies  and  faults  of  this  performance.  You  will  see,  that  the  con- 
olusion,  if  your  life  and  patience  should  hold  out  to  the  end,  is  incomplete.  There  is,  I  dare 
say,  tautology,  perhaps  contradiction.  It  is  an  effusion  from  the  mind  of  the  stock  that  was 


380  THE  DANGERS  OF 

long*  to  change  our  propensities  by  now  enlightening  our  con- 
\7ictions.  The  political  spheie,  like  the  globe  we  treud  upon, 
never  stands  still,  but  with  a  silent  swiftness  accomplishes  the 
revolutions,  which,  we  are  too  ready  to  believe,  are  effected  by 
our  wisdom,  or  might  have  been  controlled  by  our  efforts. 
There  is  a  kind  of  fatality  in  the  affairs  of  republicks,  that 
eludes  the  foresight  of  the  wise,  as  much  as  it  frustrates 
the  toils  and  sacrifices  of  the  patriot  and  the  hero.  Events 
proceed,  not  as  they  were  expected  or  intended,  but  as  they 
are  impelled  by  the  irresistible  laws  of  our  political  existence. 
Things  inevitable  happen,  and  we  are  astonished,  as  if  they 
were  miracles,  and  the  course  of  nature  had  been  overpower 
ed  or  suspended  to  produce  them.  Hence  it  is,  that,  till  lately, 
more  than  half  our  countrymen  believed  our  pubiick  tranquil 
lity  was  firmly  established,  and  that  our  liberty  did  not  merely 
rest  upon  dry  land,  but  was  wedged,  or  rather  rooted  high 
above  trie  flood  in  the  rocks  of  granite,  as  immovably  as  the 
pillars  that  prop  the  universe.  They,  or  at  least  the  discern 
ing  of  them,  are  at  length  no  less  disappointed  than  terrified 
to  perceive  that  we  have  all  the  time  floated,  with  a  fearless 
and  unregarded  course,  down  the  stream  of  events,  till  we  are 
now  visibly  drawn  within  the  revolutionary  suction  of  Niagara, 
and  every  thing  that  is  liberty  will  be  dashed  to  pieces  in  the 
descent. 

WE  have  been  accustomed  to  consider  the  pretension  of 
Englishmen  to  be  free,  as  a  proof  how  completely  they  were 
broken  to  subjection,  or  hardened  in  imposture.  We  have 
insisted,  that  they  had  no  constitution,  because  they  never 
made  one ;  and  that  their  boasted  government,  which  is  just 

iiiid  up  in  it,  without  any  resort  to  books.  Of  course,  it  wants  more  tacts,  more  illustrations, 
more  exact  method,  to  clmnge  its  aspect  of  declamation  and  rhet>  Heal  flourish  into  a 
business  performance.  I  know  it  is  unequal  When  the  children  cried,  or  my  head  ached, 
the  work  flagged.  To  be  of  value  enough  for  the  author  to  own  it,  he  must  be  allowed  time, 
enlist  bestow  on  it  more  thought,  search  for  facts  and  principles  in  pamphlets  and  larger 
works,  and,  in  short,  ma!<e  it  entirely  over  again. 

Therefore,  it  is  not  sin  wn  to  you  for  publication,  or  approbation,  as  a  thing  that  is  written, 
but  a  subject  proposed  to  be  written  upon,  for  which  you  will  furnish  liints  and  counsels. 
1805.  Your's  truly. 


AMERICAN  LIBERTY.  381 

what  time  and  accident  have  made  it,  was  palsied  with  age, 
and  blue  with  the  plague-sores  of  corruption.  We  have  be 
lieved,  that  it  derived  its  stability,  not  from  reason,  but  from 
prejudice  ;  that  it  is  supported,  not  because  it  is  favourable  to 
liberty,  but  as  it  is  dear  to  national  pride  ;  that  it  is  reverenced, 
not  for  its  excellence,  but  because  ignorance  is  naturally  the 
idolater  of  antiquity ;  that  it  is  not  sound  and  healthful,  but 
derives  a  morbid  energy  from  disease,  and  an  unaccountable 
aliment  from  the  canker  that  corrodes  its  vitals. 

BUT  we  maintained,  that  the  federal  constitution,  with  all 
the  bloom  of  youth  and  splendour  of  innocence,  was  gifted 
with  immortality.  For,  if  time  should  impair  its  force,  or  fac 
tion  tarnish  its  charms,  the  people,  ever  vigilant  to  discern  its 
wants,  ever  powerful  to  provide  for  them,  would  miraculously 
restore  it  to  the  field,  like  some  wounded  hero  of  the  epick,  to 
tfake  a  signal  vengeance  on  its  enemies,  or  like  Antaeus,  invi 
gorated  by  touching  his  mother  earth,  to  rise  the  stronger  for 
a  fall. 

THERE  is,  of  course,  a  large  portion  of  our  citizens,  who 
will  not  believe,  even  on  the  evidence  of  facts,  that  any  pubiick 
evils  exist,  or  are  impending.  They  deride  the  apprehensions 
of  those  who  foresee,  that  licentiousness  will  prove,  as  it  ever 
has  proved,  fatal  to  liberty.  They  consider  her  as  a  nymph, 
who  need  not  be  coy  to  keep  herself  pure,  but  that,  on  the 
contrary,  her  chastity  will  grow  robust  by  frequent  scuffles  with 
her  seducers.  They  say,  while  a  faction  is  a  minority,  it  will 
remain  harmless  by  being  outvoted ;  and  if  it  should  become 
a  majority,  all  its  acts,  however  profligate  or  violent,  are  then 
legitimate.  For,  with  the  democrats,  the  people  is  a  sovereign 
who  can  do  no  wrong,  even  when  he  respects  and  spares  no 
existing  right,  and  whose  voice,  however  obtained  or  however 
counterfeited,  bears  all  the  sanctity  and  all  the  force  of  a  liv 
ing  divinity.  * 

WHERE,  then,  it  will  be  asked,  in  a  tone  both  of  menace 
and  of  triumph,  can  the  people's  dangers  lie,  unless  it  be  with 
the  persecuted  federalists  ?  They  are  the  partisans  of  mon 
archy,  who  propagate  their  principles  in  order,  as  soon  as  they 


382  THE  DANGERS  OF 

have  increased  their  sect,  to  introduce  a  king ;  for  by  this  only 
avenue  they  foretell  his  approach.  Is  it  possible  the  people 
should  ever  be  their  own  enemies  ?  If  all  government  were 
dissolved  to-day,  would  they  not  re-establish  it  to-morrow,  with 
no  other  prejudice  to  the  publick  liberty,  than  some  superflu 
ous  fears  of  its  friends,  some  abortive  projects  of  its  enemies  ? 
Nay,  would  not  liberty  rise  resplendent  with  the  light  of  fresh 
experience,  and  coated  in  the  seven-fold  mail  of  constitutional 
amendments  ? 

THESE  opinions  are  fiercely  maintained,  not  only  as  if  there 
were  evidence  to  prove  them,  but  as  if  it  were  a  merit  to  believe 
them,  by  men  who  tell  you,  that,  in  the  most  desperate  extremi 
ty  of  faction  or  usurpation,  we  have  an  unfailing  resource  in  the 
good  sense  of  the  nation.  They  assure  us  there  is  at  least  as 
much  wisdom  in  the  people,  as  in  these  ingenious  tenets  of  their 
creed. 

FOR  any  purpose,  therefore,  of  popular  use  or  general  im 
pression,  it  seems  almost  fruitless  to  discuss  the  question, 
whether  our  publick  liberty  can  subsist,  and  what  is  to  be  the 
condition  of  that  awful  futurity  to  which  we  are  hastening. 
The  clamours  of  party  are  so  loud,  and  the  resistance  of  national 
vanity  is  so  stubborn,  it  will  be  impossible  to  convince  any  but 
the  very  wise,  (and  in  every  state  they  are  the  very  few)  that 
our  democratick  liberty  is  utterly  untenable  ;  that  we  are  de 
voted  to  'the  successive  struggles  of  factions,  who  will  rule  by 
turns,  the  worst  of  whom  will  rule  last,  and  triumph  by  the 
sword.  But  for  the  wise  this  unwelcome  task  is,  perhaps, 
superfluous  :  they,  possibly,  are  already  convinced. 

ALL  such  men  are,  or  ought  to  be,  agreed,  that  simple  govern 
ments  are  despotisms  ;  and  of  all  despotisms  a  democracy, 
though  the  least  durable,  is  the  most  violent.  It  is  also  true, 
that  all  the  existing  governments  we  are  acquainted  with  are 
more  or  less  mixed)  or  balanced  and  checked,  however  imper 
fectly,  by  the  ingredients  and  principles  that  belong  to  the  other 
simple  sorts.  It  is,  nevertheless,  a  fact,  that  there  is  scarcely 
any  civil  constitution  in  the  world,  that,  according  to  American 
ideas,  is  so  mixed  and  combined  as  to  be  favourable  to  the 


AMERICAN  LIBERTY.  383 

liberty  of  the  subject — none,  absolutely  none,  that  an  American 
patriot  would  be  willing  to  adopt  for,  much  less  to  impose  on, 
his  country.  Without  pretending  to  define  that  liberty,  which 
writers  at  length  agree  is  incapable  of  any  precise  and  com 
prehensive  definition,  all  the  European  governments,  except 
the  British,  admit  a  most  formidable  portion  of  arbitrary  power ; 
whereas,  in  America,  no  plan  of  government,  without  a  large 
and  preponderating  commixture  of  democracy,  can,  for  a  mo 
ment,  possess  our  confidence  and  attachment. 

IT  is  unquestionable,  that  the  concern  of  the  people  in  the 
affairs  of  such  a  government,  tends  to  elevate  the  character  and 
enlarge  the  comprehension,  as  well  as  the  enjoyments,  of  the  ci 
tizens  ;  and,  supposing  the  government  wisely  constituted,  and 
the  laws  steadily  and  firmly  carried  into  execution,  these  e'fiects, 
in  which  every  lover  of  mankind  must  exult,  will  not  be  attend 
ed  with  a  corresponding  depravation  of  the  publick  manners 
and  morals.  I  have  never  yet  met  with  an  American  of  any 
party,  who  seemed  willing  to  exclude  the  people  from  their 
temperate  and  well-regulated  share  of  concern  in  the  govern 
ment.  Indeed,  it  is  notorious,  that  there  was  scarcely  an 
advocate  for  the  federal  constitution,  who  was  not  anxious, 
from  the  first,  to  hazard  the  experiment  of  an  unprecedented, 
and  almost  unqualified  proportion  of  democracy,  both  in  con- 
sjructing  and  administering  the  government,  and  who  did  not 
rely  with  confidence,  if  not  blind  presumption,  on  its  success. 
This  is  certain,  the  body  of  the  federalists  were  always,  and  yet 
are  essentially  democratick  in  their  political  notions.  The  truth 
is,  the  American  nation,  with  ideas  and  prejudices  wholly  demo 
cratick,  undertook  to  frame,  and  expected  tranquilly,  and 
with  energy  and  success,  to  administer  a  republican  govern 
ment. 

IT  is,  and  ever  has  been  my  belief,  that  the  federal  consti 
tution  was  as  good,  or  very  nearly  as  good,  as  our  country 
could  bear ;  that  the  attempt  to  introduce  a  mixed  monarchy  was 
never  thought  of,  and  would  have  failed,  if  it  had  been  made ;  and 
could  have  proved  only  an  inveterate  curse  to  the  nation,  if  it  had 
been  adopted  cheerfully,  and  eren  unanimously,  by  the  people. 


384  THE  DANGERS  OF 

Our  materials  for  a  government  were  all  democratick,  and  what 
ever  the  hazard  of  their  combination  may  be,  our  Solons  and 
Lycurguses  in  the  convention  had  no  alternative,  nothing  to  con 
sider,  but  how  to  combine  them,  so  as  to  ensure  the  longest  dura 
tion  to  the  constitution,  and  the  most  favourable  chance  for  the 
pu:  lick  liberty  in  the  event  of  those  changes,  which  the  frailty 
of  the  structure  of  our  government,  the  operation  of  time  and 
accident,  and  the  maturity  and  developement  of  the  national 
character  were  well  understood  to  portend.  We  should  have 
succeeded  worse,  if  we  had  trusted  to  our  metaphysicks  more. 
Experience  must  be  our  physician,  though  his  medicines  may 
kill. 

THE  danger  obviously  was,  that  a  species  of  government,  in 
which  the  people  choose  all  the  rulers,  and  then,  by  themselves, 
or  ambitious  demagogues  pretending  to  be  the  people,  claim 
and  exercise  an  effective  control  over  what  is  called  the  gov 
ernment,  would  be  found  on  trial  no  better  than  a  turbulent, 
licentious  democracy.  The  danger  was,  that  their  best  inter 
ests  would  be  neglected,  their  dearest  rights  violated,  their  sober 
reason  silenced,  and  the  worst  passions  of  the  worst  men  not 
only  freed  from  legal  restraint,  but  invested  with  pubiick  power. 
The  known  propensity  of  a  democracy  is  to  licentiousness, 
which  the  ambitious  call,  and  the  ignorant  believe  to  be  liberty. 

THE  great  object,  then,  of  political  wisdom  in  framing  our 
constitution,  was  to  guard  against  licentiousness,  that  inbred 
malady  of  democracies,  that  deforms  their  infancy  with  grey 
hairs  and  decrepitude. 

THE  federalists  relied  much  on  the  efficiency  of  an  indepen 
dent  judiciary,  as  a  check  on  the  hasty  turbulence  of  the  popu 
lar  passions.  They  supposed  the  senate  proceeding  from  the 
states,  and  chosen  for  six  years,  would  form  a  sort  of  balance  to 
the  democracy,  and  realise,  the  hope,  that  a  federal  refiublick 
of  states  might  subsist.  They  counted  much  on  the  informa 
tion  of  the  citizens  ;  that  they  would  give  their  unremitted 
attention  to  pubiick  affairs ;  that  either  dissensions  would  not 
arise  in  our  "happy  country,  or,  if  they  should,  that  the  citizens 


AMERICAN  LIBERTY.  385 

would  remain  calm,  and  would  walk,  like  the  three  Jews  in 
Nebuchadnezzar's  furnace,  unharmed  amidst  the  fires  of  party. 

IT  is  needless  to  ask,  how  rational  such  hopes  were,  or  how 
far  experience  has  verified  them. 

THE  progress  of  party  has  given  to  Virginia  a  preponder 
ance,  that,  perhaps,  was  not  foreseen.  Certainly,  since  the 
late  amendment  in  the  article  for  the  choice  of  president  and 
vice-president,  there  is  no  existing  provision  of  any  efficacy 
to  counteract  it. 

THE  project  of  arranging  states  in  a  federal  union,  has  long 
been  deemed  by  able  writers  and  statesmen  more  promising 
than  the  scheme  of  a  single  republick.  The  experiment,  it 
has  been  supposed,  has  not  yet  been  fairly  tried  ;  and  much 
has  been  expected  from  the  example  of  America. 

IF  states  were  neither  able  nw  inclined  to  obstruct  the  fede 
ral  union,  much,  indeed,  might  be  hoped  from  such  a  confede 
ration.  But  Virginia,  Pennsylvania,  and  New-York  are  of  an 
extent  sufficient  to  form  potent  monarchies,  and,  of  course, 
are  too  powerful,  as  well  as  too  proud,  to  be  subjects  of  the 
federal  latos.  Accordingly,  one  of  the  first  schemes  of  amend 
ment^  and  the  most  early  executed,  was,  to  exempt  them  in 
form  from  the  obligations  of  justice.  States  are  not  liable  to 
be  sued.  Either  the  federal  head  or  the  powerful  members 
must  govern.  Now,  as  it  is  a  thing  ascertained  by  experience, 
that  the  great  states  are  not  willing,  and  cannot  be  compelled 
to  obey  the  union,  it  is  manifest,  that  their  ambition  is  most 
singularly  invited  to  aspire  to  the  usurpation  or  control  of  the 
powers  of  the  confederacy.  A  confederacy  of  many  states,  all 
of  them  small  in  extent  and  population,  not  only  might  not 
obstruct,  but  happily  facilitate  the  federal  authority.  But  the 
late  presidential  amendment  demonstrates  the  overwhelming 
preponderance  of  several  great  states,  combining  together  to 
engross  the  control  of  federal  affairs. 

THERE  never  has  existed  a  federal  union,  in  which  the  lead 
ing  states  were  not  ambitious  to  rule,  and  did  not  endeavour 
to  rule  by  fomenting  factions  in  the  small  states,  and  thus 
engross  the  management  of  the  federal  concerns.  Hence  it 
49 


386  THE  DANGERS  OF 

was,  that  Sparta,  at  the  head  of  the  Peloponnesus,  filled  all 
Greece  with  terrour  and  dissension.  In  every  city  she  had  an 
aristocratical  party  to  kill  or  to  banish  the  popular  faction,  that 
was  devoted  to  her  rival,  Athens  ;  so  that  each  city  was  inhabit 
ed  by  two  hostile  nations,  whom  no  laws  of  war  could  control, 
no  leagues  or  treaties  bind.  Sometimes  Athens,  sometimes 
Sparta  took  the  ascendant,  and  influenced  the  decrees  of  the 
famous  Amphyctionick  council,  the  boasted  federal  head  of 
the  Grecian  republicks.  But  at  all  times  that  head  was  wholly 
destitute  of  authority,  except  when  violent  and  sanguinary  mea 
sures  were  dictated  to  it  by  some  preponderant  member.  The 
small  states  were  immediately  reduced  to  an  absolute  nullity, 
and  were  subject  to  the  most  odious  of  all  oppressions,  the 
domination  of  one  state  over  another  state. 

THE  Grecian  states,  forming  the  Amphyctionick  league, 
composed  the  most  illustrious  federal  republick  that  ever 
existed.  Its  dissolution  and  ruin  were  brought  about  by  the 
operation  of  the  principles  and  passions,  that  are  inherent  in 
all  such  associations.  The  Thebans,  one  of  the  leading  states, 
uniting  with  the  Thessalians,  both  animated  by  jealousy  and 
resentment  against  the  Phocians,  procured  a  decree  of  the 
council  of  the  Amphyctions,  where  their  joint  influence  pre 
dominated,  as  that  of  Virginia  now  does  in  congress,  condemn 
ing  the  Phocians  to  a  heavy  fine  for  some  pretended  sacrilege 
they  had  committed  on  the  lands  consecrated  to  the  temple 
of  Delphi.  Finding  the  Phocians,  as  they  expected  and  wish 
ed,  not  inclined  to  submit,  by  a  second  decree  they  devoted 
their  lands  to  the  god  of  that  temple,  and  called  upon  all 
Greece  to  arm  in  their  sacred  cause,  for  so  they  affected  to 
call  it.  A  contest  thus  began,  which  w?a  doubly  sanguinary, 
because  it  combined  the  characters  of  a  rt  ligious  and  civil  war, 
and  raged  for  more  than  ten  years.  In  the  progress  of  it,  the 
famous  Philip  of  Macedon  found  means  to  introduce  himself 
as  a  party  ;  and  the  nature  of  his  measures,  as  well  as  their 
final  success,  is  an  everlasting  warning  to  all  federal  repub- 
iicks.  lie  appears  from  the  first  moment  of  his  reign  to  have 


j 

AMERICAN  LIBERTY.  387 

jilanned  the  subjugation  of  Greece  ;  and  in  two  and  twenty 
years  he  accomplished  his  purpose. 

AFTER  having  made  his  escape  from  the  city  of  Thebes, 
where  he  had  been  a  hostage,  he  had  to  recover  his  hereditary 
kingdom,  weakened  by  successive  defeats,  and  distracted  with 
factions,  from  foreign  invaders  and  from  two  dangerous  com 
petitors  of  his  throne.  As  soon  as  he  became  powerful,  his 
restless  ambition  sought  every  opportunity  to  intermeddle  in 
the  affairs  of  Greece,  in  respect  to  which  Macedonia  was  con 
sidered  an  alien,  and  the  sacred  war  soon  furnished  it.  Invit 
ed  by  the  Thessalians  to  assist  them  against  the  Phocians,  he 
pretended  an  extraordinary  zeal  for  religion,  as  well  as  respect 
for  the  decree  of  the  Amphyctions.  Like  more  modern  de 
magogues,  he  made  use  of  his  popularity  first  to  prepare  the 
way  for  his  arms.  He  had  no  great  difficulty  in  subduing 
them  ;  and  obtained  for  his  reward  another  Amphyctionick  de 
cree,  by  which  the  vote  of  Phocis  was  for  ever  transferred  to 
Philip  and  his  descendants.  Philip  soon  after  took  possession 
of  the  pass  of  Thermopylae,  and  within  eight  years  turned  his 
arms  against  those  very  Thebans,  whom  he  had  before  assist 
ed.  They  had  no  refuge  in  the  federal  union,  which  they  had 
helped  to  enfeeble.  They  were  utterly  defeated  ;  Thebes,  the 
pride  of  Greece,  was  razed  to  the  ground ;  the  citizens  were 
sold  into  slavery ;  and  the  national  liberties  were  extinguish 
ed  for  ever. 

HERE  let  Americans  read  their  own  history.  Here  let 
even  Virginia  learn,  how  perilous  and  how  frail  will  be  the 
consummation  of  her  schemes.  Powerful  states,  that  com 
bine  to  domineer  over  the  weak,  will  be  inevitably  divided  by 
their  success,  and  ravaged  with  civil  war,  often  baffled,  always 
agitated  by  intrigue,  shaken  with  alarms,  and  finally  involved 
in  one  common  slavery  and  ruin,  of  which  they  are  no  less 
conspicuously  the  artificers  than  the  victims. 

IF,  in  the  nature  of  things,  there  could  be  any  experience, 
which  would  be  extensively  instructive,  but  our  own,  all  his 
tory  lies  open  for  our  warning,  open  like  a  church-yard,  all 
whose  lessons  are  solemn,  and  chiseled  for  eternity  in  the 


388  THE  DANGERS  OF 

hard  stone,  lessons  that  whisper,  O  !  that  they  could  thunder 
to  republicks,  "  your  passions  and  vices  forbid  you  to  be  free/' 

BUT  experience,  though  she  teaches  wisdom,  teaches  it  too 
late.  The  most  signal  events  pass  away  unprofitably  for  the 
generation,  in  which  they  occur,  till  at  length  a  people,  deaf 
to  the  things  that  belong  to  its  pence,  is  destroyed  or  enslaved, 
because  it  will  not  be  instructed. 

FROM  these  reflections  the  political  observer  will  infer,  that 
the  American  republick  is  impelled  by  the  force  of  state  am 
bition  and  of  dernocratick  licentiousness  ;  and  he  will  inquire, 
which  of  the  two  is  our  strongest  propensity.  Is  the  sovereign 
power  to  be  contracted  to  a  state  centre  ?  Is  Virginia  to  be  our 
Rome  ?  and  are  we  to  be  her  Latin  or  Italian  allies,  like  them 
to  be  emulous  of  the  honour  of  our  chains,  on  the  terms  of 
imposing  them  on  Louisiana,  Mexico,  or  Santa  Fe  ?  Or,  are 
we  to  run  the  giddy  circle  of  popular  licentiousness,  begin 
ning  in  delusion,  quickened  by  vice,  and  ending  in  wretched 
ness  ? 

BUT,  though  these  two  seem  to  be  contrary  impulses,  it 
will  appear,  nevertheless,  on  examination,  that  they  really  lead 
to  but  one  result. 

THE  great  state  of  Virginia  has  fomented  a  licentious  spirit 
among  all  her  neighbours.  Her  citizens  imagine,  that  they 
are  democrats,  and  their  abstract  theories  are  in  fact  demo- 
cratick  ;  but  their  state  policy  is  that  of  a  genuine  aristocracy 
or  oligarchy.  Whatever  their  notions  or  their  state  practice 
may  be,  their  policy,  as  it  respects  the  other  states,  is  to  throw 
all  power  into  the  hands  of  dernocratick  zealots  or  jacobin 
knaves ;  for  some  of  these  may  be  deluded  and  others  bought 
to  promote  her  designs.  And,  even  independently  of  a  direct 
Virginia  influence,  every  state  faction  will  find  its  account  in 
courting  the  alliance  and  promoting  the  views  of  this  great 
leader.  Those  who  labour  to  gain  a  factious  power  in  a  state, 
and  those  who  aspire  to  get  a  paramount  jurisdiction  ever  it, 
will  not  be  slow  to  discern,  that  they  have  a  common  cause  to 
pursue. 


AMERICAN  LIBERTY.  '  389 

IN  the  intermediate  progress  of  our  affairs,  the  ambition  of 
Virginia  may  be  gratified.  So  long  as  popular  licentiousness 
is  operating  with  no  lingering  industry  to  effect  our  yet  un 
finished  ruin,  she  may  flourish  the  whip  of  dominion  in  her 
hands  ;  but,  as  soon  as  it  is  accomplished,  she  will  be  the  asso 
ciate  of  our  shame,  and  bleed  under  its  lashes.  For  demo- 
cratick  license  leads  not  to  a  monarchy  regulated  by  laws,  but 
to  the  ferocious  despotism  of  a  chieftain,  who  owes  his  eleva 
tion  to  arms  and  violence,  and  leans  on  his  sword  as  the  only  prop 
of  his  dominion.  Such  a  conqueror,  jealous  and  fond  of  no 
thing  but  his  power,  will  care  no  more  for  Virginia,  though  he 
may  rise  by  Virginia,  than  Buonaparte  does  for  Corsica.  Vir 
ginia  will  then  find,  that,  Ijke  ancient  Thebes,  she  has  worked 
for  Philip,  and  forged  her  own  fetters. 

THERE  are  few,  even  among  the  democrats,  ivho  will  doubt^ 
though  to  a  man  they  will  deny,  that  the  ambition  of  that  state 
is  inordinate,  and,  unless  seasonably  counteracted,  will  be  fatal ; 
yet  they  will  persevere  in  striving  for  power  in  their  states, 
before  they  think  it  necessary,  or  can  find  it  convenient  to  at 
tend  to  her  encroachments. 

BUT  there  are  not  many,  perhaps  not  five  hundred,  even  among 
the  federalists,  who  yet  allow  themselves  to  view  the  progress 
of  licentiousness  as  so  speedy,  so  sure,  and  so  fatal  as  the  de 
plorable  experience  of  our  country  shews  that  it  is,  and  the 
evidence  of  history  and  the  constitution  of  human  nature  de 
monstrate  that  it  must  be. 

THE  truth  is,  such  an  opinion,  admitted  with  all  the  terrible 
light  of  its  proof,  no  less  shocks  our  fears  than  our  vanity,  no 
less  disturbs  our  quiet  than  our  prejudices.  We  are  sum 
moned  by  the  tocsin  to  every  perilous  and  painful  duty.  Our 
days  are  made  heavy  with  the  pressure  of  anxiety,  and  our 
-nights  restless  with  visions  of  horrour.  We  listen  to  the 
clank  of  chains,  and  overhear  the  whispers  of  assassins.  We 
mark  the  barbarous  dissonance  of  mingled  rage  and  triumph 
in  the  yell  of  an  infatuated  mob  ;  we  see  the  dismal  glare  of 
their  burnings  and  scent  the  loathsome  steam  of  human  vic 
tims  offered  in  sacrifice. 


390  THE  DANGERS  OF 

THESE  reflections  may  account  for  the  often  lamented 
blindness,  as  well  as  apathy  of  our  well-disposed  citizens. 
Who  would  choose  to  study  the  tremendous  records  of  the 
fates,  or  to  remain  long  in  the  dungeon  of  the  furies  ?  Who, 
that  is  penetrating  enough  to  foresee  our  scarcely  hidden  des 
tiny,  is  hardy  enough  to  endure  its  anxious  contemplation  ? 

IT  may  not  long  be  more  safe  to  disturb,  than  it  is  easy  to 
enlighten  the  democratick  faith  in  regard  to  our  political  pro 
pensities,  since  it  will  neither  regard  what  is  obvious,  nor  yield 
to  the  impression  of  events,  even  after  they  have  happened. 
The  thoughtless  and  ignorant  care  for  nothing  but  the  name 
of  liberty,  which  is  as  much  the  end  as  the  instrument  of 
party,  and  equally  fills  up  the  measure  of  their  comprehension 
and  desires.  According  to  the  conception  of  such  men,  the  pub- 
lick  liberty  can  never  perish  :  it  will  enjoy  immortality,  like  the 
dead  in  the  memory  of  the  living.  We  have  heard  the  French 
prattle  about  its  rights,  and  seen  them  swagger  in  the  fancied 
possession  of  its  distinctions,  long  after  they  were  crushed  by  the 
weight  of  their  chains.  The  Romans  were  not  only  amused,  but 
really  made  vain,  by  the  boast  of  their  liberty,  while  they  sweated 
and  trembled  under  the  despotism  of  emperours,  the  most, 
odious  monsters  that  ever  infested  the  earth.  It  is  remarkable, 
that  Cicero,  with  all  his  dignity  and  good  sense,  found  it  a  popu 
lar  seasoning  of  his  harangue,  six  years  after  Julius  Cesar  had 
established  a  monarchy,  and  only  six  months  before  Octavius 
totally  subverted  the  commonwealth,  to  say  :  "  it  is  not  possible 
for  the  people  of  Rome  to  be  slaves,  whom  the  gods  have 
destined  to  the  command  of  all  nations.  Other  nations  may 
endure  slavery,  but  the  proper  end  and  business  of  the  Roman 
people  is  liberty." 

THIS  very  opinion  in  regard  to  the  destinies  of  our  country 
is  neither  less  extensively  diffused,  nor  less  solidly  established. 
Such  men  will  persist  in  thinking  our  liberty  cannot  be  in 
danger,  till  it  is  irretrievably  lost. '  It  is  even  the  boast  of  mul 
titudes,  that  our  system  of  government  is  a  pure  democracy. 

WHAT  is  there  left,  that  can  check  its  excesses  or  retard 
the  velocity  of  its  fall  ?  Not  the  control  of  the  several  states, 


AMERICAN  LIBERTY.  391 

for  they  already  whirl  in  the  vortex  of  faction ;  and,  of  conse 
quence,  not  the  senate,  which  is  appointed  by  the  states. 
Surely  not  the  judiciary,  for  we  cannot  expect  the  office  of 
the  priesthood  from  the  victim  at  the  altar.  Are  we  to  be 
sheltered  by  the  force  of  ancient  manners  ?  Will  this  be 
sufficient  to  control  the  two  evil  spirits  of  license  and  innova 
tion  ?  Where  is  any  vestige  of  those  manners  left,  but  in  New- 
England  ?  and  even  in  New-England  their  authority  is  con 
tested  and  their  purity  debased.  Are  our  civil  and  religious 
institutions  to  stand  so  firmly,  as  to  sustain  themselves  and  so 
much  of  the  fabrick  of  the  publick  order  as  is  propped  by  their 
support  ?  On  the  contrary,  do  we  not  find  the  ruling  faction 
in  avowed  hostility  to  our  religious  institutions  ?  In  effect, 
though  not  in  form,  their  protection  is  abandoned  by  our  laws, 
and  confided  to  the  steadiness  of  sentiment  and  fashion  ;  and, 
if  they  are  still  powerful  auxiliaries  of  lawful  authority,  it  is 
owing  to  the  tenaciousness,  with  which  even  a  degenerate  peo 
ple  maintain  their  habits,  and  to  a  yet  remaining,  though  im 
paired  veneration  for  the  maxims  of  our  ancestors.  We  are 
changing,  and,  if  democracy  triumphs  in  New -England,  it  is 
to  be  apprehended,  that  in  a  few  years  we  shall  be  as  prone  to 
disclaim  our  great  progenitors,  as  they,  if  they  should  return 
again  to  the  earth,  with  grief  and  shame  to  disown  their  de 
generate  descendants. 

Is  the  turbulence  of  our  democracy  to  be  restrained  by  pre 
ferring  to  the  magistracy  only  the  grave  and  upright,  the  men 
who  profess  the  best  moral  and  religious  principles,  and  whose 
lives  bear  testimony  in  favour  of  their  profession,  whose  virtues 
inspire  confidence,  whose  services,  gratitude,  and  whose  talents 
command  admiration  ?  Such  magistrates  would  add  dignity  to 
the  best  government,  and  disarm  the  malignity  of  the  worst. 
But  the  bare  moving  of  this  question  will  be  understood  as  a 
sarcasm  by  men  of  both  parties.  The  powers  of  impudence  it 
self  are  scarcely  adequate  to  say,  that  our  magistrates  are  such 
men.  The  atrocities  of  a  distinguished  tyrant  might  provoke 
satire  to  string  his  bow,  and  with  the  arrow  of  Philoctetes  to 
inflict  the  immedicable  wound.  We  have  no  Juvenal ;  and  if 


392  THE  DANGERS  OF 

we  had,  he  would  scorn  to  dissect  the  vice  that  wants  firmness 
for  the  knife,  to  elevate  that  he  might  hit  his  object,  and  to 
dignify  low  profligacy  to  be  the  vehicle  of  a  loathsome  immor 
tality. 

IT  never  has  happened  in  the  world,  and  it  never  will,  that 
a  democracy  has  been  kept  out  of  the  control  of  the  fiercest 
and  most  turbulent  spirits  in  the  society ;  they  will  breathe 
into  it  all  their  own  fury,  and  make  it  subservient  to  the  worst 
designs  of  the  worst  men. 

ALTHOUGH  it  does  not  appear,  that  the  science  of  good  gov 
ernment  has  made  any  advances  since  the  invention  of  print 
ing,  it  is  nevertheless  the  opinion  of  many,  that  this  art  has 
risen,  like  another  sun  in  the  sky,  to  shed  new  light  and  joy 
on  the  political  world.  The  press,  however,  has  left  the  un 
derstanding  of  the  mass  of  men  just  where  it  found  it ;  but,  by 
supplying  an  endless  stimulus  to  their  imagination  and  passi 
ons,  it  has  rendered  their  temper  and  habits  infinitely  worse. 
It  has  inspired  ignorance  with  presumption,  so  that  those  who 
cannot  be  governed  by  reason,  are  no  longer  to  be  awed  by 
authority.  The  many,  who  before  the  art  of  printing  never 
mistook  in  a  case  of  oppression,  because  they  complained 
from  their  actual  sense  of  it,  have  become  susceptible  of 
every  transient  enthusiasm  and  of  more  than  womanish  fickle 
ness  of  caprice.  Publick  affairs  are  transacted  now  on  a  stage, 
where  all  the  interest  and  passions  grow  out  of  fiction,  or  are 
inspired  by  the  art,  and  often  controlled  at  the  pleasure  of  the 
actors.  The  press  is  a  new  and,  certainly,  a  powerful  agent  in 
human  affairs.  It  will  change,  but  it  is  difficult  to  conceive 
how,  by  rendering  men  indocile  and  presumptuous,  it  can  change 
societies  for  the  better.  They  are  pervaded  by  its  heat  and 
kept  for  ever  restless  by  its  activity.  While  it  has  impaired 
the  force  that  every  just  government  can  employ  in  self- 
defence,  it  has  imparted  to  its  enemies  the  secret  of  that 
Avildfire,  that  blazes  with  the  most  consuming  fierceness  on 
attempting  to  quench  it. 

SHALL  we  then  be  told,  that  the  press  will  constitute  an  ade 
quate  check  to  the  progress  of  every  species  of  tyranny  ?  Is  it 


AMERICAN  LIBERTY.  393 

to  be  denied,  that  the  press  has  been  the  base  and  venal  instru 
ment  of  the  very  men  whom  it  ought  to  gibbet  to  universal 
abhorrence  ?  While  they  were  climbing  to  power,  it  aided  their 
ascent ;  and  now  they  have  reached  it,  does  it  not  conceal  or 
justify  their  abominations  ?  Or,  while  it  is  confessed,  that  the 
majority  of  citizens  form  their  ideas  of  men  and  measures 
almost  solely  from  the  light  that  reaches  them  through  the 
magick  lantern  of  the  press,  do  our  comforters  still  depend 
on  the  all -re  storing,  all-preserving  power  of  general  informa 
tion  ?  and  are  they  not  destitute  of  all  this^  or  rather  of  any 
better  information  themselves,  if  they  can  urge  this  vapid  non 
sense  in  the  midst  of  a  yet  spreading  political  delusion,  in  the 
midst  of  the  "  palpable  obscure"  that  settles  on  the  land,  from 
believing  what  is  false,  and  misconstruing  what  is  true  ?  Can  they 
believe  all  this,  when  they  consider  how  much  truth  is  impe- 
-  ded  by  party  on  its  way  to  the  publick  understanding)  and  even 
after  having  reached  it,  how  much  it  still  falls  short  of  its  pro 
per  mark,  while  it  leaves  the  envious,  jealous,  vindictive  will 
unconquered  ? 

OUR  mistake,  and  in  which  we  choose  to  persevere,  be 
cause  our  vanity  shrinks  from  the  detection,  is,  that  in  political 
affairs,  by  only  determining  what  men  ought  to  think,  we  are 
sure  how  they  will  act ;  and  when  we  know  the  facts,  and  are 
assiduous  to  collect  and  present  the  evidence,  we  dupe  our 
selves  with  the  expectation,  that,  as  there  is  but  one  result 
which  wise  men  can  believe,  there  is  but  one  course  of  con 
duct  deduced  from  it,  which  honest  men  can  approve  or  pur 
sue.  We  forget,  that  in  framing  the  judgment  every  passion 
is  both  an  advocate  and  a  witness.  We  lay  out  of  our  account, 
how  much  essential  information  there  is  that  never  reaches 
the  multitude,  and  of  the  mutilated  portion  that  does,  how 
much  is  unwelcome  to  party  prejudice ;  and,  therefore,  that 
they  may  still  maintain  their  opinions,  they  withhold  their  at 
tention.  We  seem  to  suppose,  while  millions  raise  so  loud 
a  cry  about  their  sovereign  power,  and  really  concentre  both 
their  faith  and  their  affections  in  party,  that  the  bulk  of  man 
kind  will  regard  no  counsels,  but  such  as  are  suggested  by 


394  THE  DANGERS  OF 

their  conscience.  Let  us  dare  to  speak  out ;  is  there  any  sin 
gle  despot  who  avowedly  holds  himself  so  superiour  to  its  dic 
tates  ? 

BUT  our  manners  arc  too  mild,  they  tell  us,  for  a  democracy — - 
then  democracy  will  change  those  mariners.  Our  morals  are 
too  pure — then  it  will  corrupt  them. 

V,  HAT,  then,  is  the  necessary  conclusion  from  the  view  we 
have  taken  of  the  insufficiency  or  extinction  of  all  conceivable 
checks  ?  It  is  such  as  ought  to  strike  terrour,  but  will  scarcely 
raise  publick  curiosity. 

Is  it  not  possible,  then,  it  will  be  asked,  to  write  and  argue 
down  opinions  that  are  so  mischievous  and  only  plausible,  and 
men  who  are  even  more  profligate  than  exalted  ?  Can  we  not 
persuade  our  citizens  to  be  republican  aguin,  so  as  to  rebuild 
the  sp-endid  ruins  of  the  state  on  the  Washington  foundation? 
Thus  it  is,  that  we  resolve  to  perpetuate  our  own  delusions, 
and  to  cherish  our  still  frustrated  and  confuted  hopes.  Let 
only  ink  enough  be  nhed,  and  let  democracy  rage,  there  will  be  no 
blood.  Though  the  evil  is  fixed  in  our  nature,  all,  we  think, 
will  be  safe,  because  we  fancy  we  can  see  a  remedy  floating  in 
our  opinions. 

IT  is  undoubtedly  a  salutary  labour,  to  diffuse  among  the 
citizens  of  a  free  state,  as  far  as  the  thing  is  possible,  a  just 
knowledge  of  their  publick  affairs.  But  the  difficulty  of  this 
task  is  augmented  exactly  in  proportion  to  the  freedom  of  the 
state  ;  for  the  more  free  the  citizens,  the  bolder  and  more  pro 
fligate  will  be  their  demagogues,  the  more  numerous  and 
eccentric!;  the  popular  errours,  and  the  more  vehement  and 
pertinacious  the  passions  that  defend  them. 

YET,  as  if  there  were  neither  vice  nor  passion  in  the  world, 
one  of  the  loudest  of  our  boasts,  one  of  the  dearest  of  all  the 
tenets  of  our  creed  is,  that  we  are  a  sovereign  people,  self- 
governed — it  would  be  nearer  truth  to  say,  self-conceited.  For 
in  what  sense  is  it  true,  that  any  people,  however  free,  are 
self-governed  ?  If  they  have  in  fact  no  government,  but  such  as 
comports  with  their  ever  varying  and  often  inordinate  desires, 
then  it  is  anarchy ;  if  it  counteracts  those  desires,  it  is  com- 


AMERICAN  LIRERTY.  595 

pulsoiy.  The  individual,  who  is  left  to  act  according  to  his 
own  humour,  is  not  governed  at  all  ;  and  if  any  considerable 
number,  and  especially  any  combination  of  individuals,  find  or 
can  place  themselves  in  this  situation,  then  the  society  is  no 
longer  free.  For  liberty  obviously  consists  in  the  salutary 
restraint,  and  not  in  the  uncontrolled  indulgence  of  such  hu 
mours.  Now  of  all  desires,  none  will  so  much  need  restraint, 
or  so  impatiently  endure  it,  as  those  of  the  ambitious,  who  will 
form  factions,  first  to  elude,  then  to  rival,  and  finally  to  usurp 
the  powers  of  the  state  ;  and  of  the  sons  of  -vice,  who  are  the 
enemies  of  law,  because  no  just  law  can  be  their  friend.  The 
first  want  to  govern  the  state  ;  and  the  others,  that  the  state 
should  not  govern  them.  A  sense  of  common  interest  will 
soon  incline  these  two  original  factions  of  every  free  state  to 
coalesce  into  one. 

So  far  as  men  are  swayed  by  authority,  or  impelled  or  excit 
ed  by  their  fears  and  affections,  they  naturally  search  for  some 
persons  as  the  sources  and  objects  of  these  effects  and  emotions. 
It  is  pretty  enough  to  si;y,  the  republick  commands,  and  the 
love  of  the  republick  dictates  obedience  to  the  heart  of  every 
citizen.  This  is  system,  but  is  it  nature  ?  The  republick  is  a 
creature  of  fiction  ;  it  is  every  body  in  the  fancy,  but  nobody 
in  the  heart.  Love,  to  be  any  thing,  must  be  select  and  exclu 
sive.  We  may  as  well  talk  of  loving  geometry  as  the  common 
wealth.  Accordingly,  there  are  many  who  seldom  try  to  reason, 
and  are  the  most  misled  when  they  do.  Such  men  are,  of 
necessity,  governed  by  their  prejudices.  They  neither  com 
prehend  nor  like  any  thing  of  a  republick,  but  their  party  and 
their  leaders.  These  last  are  persons,  capable  of  meriting,  at 
least  of  knowing  and  rewarding  their  zeal  and  exertions. 
Hence  it  is,  that  the  republicanism  of  a  great  mass  of  people 
is  often  nothing  more,  than  a  blind  trust  in  certain  favourites, 
and  a  no  less  blind  and  still  more  furious  hatred  of  their  ene 
mies.  Thus,  a  free  society,  by  the  very  nature  pf  liberty,  is 
often  ranged  into  rival  factions,  who  mutually  practise  and  suf 
fer  delusion  by  the  abuse  of  the  best  names,  but  who  really 
contend  for  nothing  but  the  pre-eminence  of  their  leaders. 


396  THE  DANGERS  OF 

IN  a  democracy,  the  elevation  of  an  equal  convinces  many, 
if  not  all,  that  the  height  to  which  he  is  raised  is  not  inaccessi 
ble.  Ambition  Avakes  from  its  long  sleep  in  every  soul,  and 
wakes,  like  one  of  Milton's  fallen  angels,  to  turn  its  tortures 
into  weapons  against  the  publick  order.  The  multitude  behold 
their  favourite  with  eyes  of  love  and  wonder  ;  and  with  the 
more  of  both,  as  he  is  a  new  favourite,  and  owes  his  greatness 
wholly  to  their  favour.  Who  among  the  little  does  not  swell 
into  greatness,  when  he  thus  reflects,  that  he  has  assisted  to 
make  great  men  ?  And  who  of  the  popular  favourites  loses  a 
minute  to  flatter  this  vanity  in  every  brain,  till  it  turns  it  ? 

THE  late  equals  of  the  new-made  chief  behold  his  rise  with 
very  different  emotions.  They  view  him  near,  and  have  long 
been  accustomed  to  look  behind  the  disguises  of  his  hypocrisy. 
They  know  his  vices  and  his  foibles,  and  that  the  foundations 
of  his  fame  are  as  false  and  hollow  as  his  professions.  Never 
theless,  it  may  be  their  interest  or  their  necessity  to  serve  him 
for  a  time.  But  the  instant  they  can  supplant  him,  they  will  spare 
neither  intrigues  nor  violence  to  effect  it.  Thus,  a  democra- 
tick  system  in  its  very  nature  teems  with  faction  and  revolution. 
Yet,  though  it  continually  tends  to  shift  its  head,  its  character 
is  immutable.  Its  constancy  is  in  change. 

THE  theory  of  a  democracy  supposes,  that  the  will  of  the 
people  ought  to  prevail,  and  that,  as  the  majority  possess  not 
only  the  better  right,  but  the  superiour  force,  of  course,  it  will 
prevail.  A  greater  force,  they  argue,  will  inevitably  overcome 
a  less.  When  a  constitution  provides,  with  an  imposing  solem 
nity  of  detail,  for  the  collection  of  the  opinions  of  a  majority  of 
the  citizens,  every  sanguine  reader  not  only  becomes  assured, 
that  the  will  of  the  people  must  prevail,  but  he  goes  further, 
and  refuses  to  examine  the  reasons,  and  to  excuse  the  incivism 
und  presumption  of  those  who  can  doubt  of  this  inevitable 
result.  Yet  common  sense  and  our  own  recent  experience 
have  shewn,  that  a  combination  of  a  very  small  minority  can 
effectually  defeat  the  authority  of  the  national  will.  The  votes 
of  a  majority  may  sometimes,  though  not  invariably,  shew  what 
ought  to  be  done  ;  but  to  awe  or  subdue  the  force  of  a  thou- 


AMERICAN  LIBERTY.  397 

sand  men,  the  government  must  call  out  the  superiour  force 
of  two  thousand  nten.  It  is,  therefore,  established  the  very 
instant  it  is  brought  to  the  test,  that  the  mere  will  of  a  majority 
is  inefficient  and  without  authority.  And  as  to  employing  a 
superiour  force  to  procure  obedience,  which  a  democratick 
government  has  an  undoubted  right  to  do,  and  so,  indeed,  has 
every  other,  it  is  obvious,  that  the  admitted  necessity  of  this 
resort  completely  overthrows  all  the  boasted  advantages  of  the 
democratick  system.  For,  if  obedience  cannot  be  procured  by 
reason,  it  must  be  obtained  by  compulsion  ;  and  this  is  exactly 
what  every  other  government  will  do  in  a  like  case. 

STILL,  however,  the  friends  of  the  democratick  theory  will 
maintain,  that  this  dire  resort  to  force  will  be  exceedingly 
rare,  because  the  publick  reason  will  be  more  clearly  express 
ed  and  more  respectfully  understood,  than  under  any  other 
form  of  government.  The  citizens  will  be,  of  course,  self-gov 
erned,  as  it  will  be  their  choice  as  well  as  duty  to  obey  the 
laws. 

IT  has  been  already  remarked,  that  the  refusal  of  a  very 
small  minority  to  obey,  will  render  force  necessary.  It  has 
been  also  noted,  that,  as  every  mass  of  people  will  inevitably 
desire  a  favourite,  and  fix  their  trust  and  affections  upon  one, 
it  clearly  follows,  that  there  will  be,  of  course,  a  faction  op 
posed  to  the  publick  will,  as  expressed  in  the  laws.  Now,  if 
a  faction  is  once  admitted  to  exist  in  a  state,  the  disposition 
and  the  means  to  obstruct  the  laws,  or,  in  other  words,  the  will  of 
the  majority,  must  be  perceived  to  exist  also.  If,  then,  it  be 
true,  that  a  democratick  government  is  of  all  the  most  liable 
to  faction,  which  no  man  of  sense  will  deny,  it  is  manifest,  that 
it  is,  from  its  very  nature,  obliged  more  than  any  other  gov 
ernment  to  resort  to  force  to  overcome  or  awe  the  power  of 
faction.  This  latter  will  continually  employ  its  own  power, 
that  acts  always  against  the  physical  force  of  the  nation,  which 
can  be  brought  to  act  only  in  extreme  cases,  and  then,  like 
every  extreme  remedy,  aggravates  the  evil.  For,  let  it  be 
noted,  a  regular  government  by  overcoming  an  unsuccessful 
insurrection  becomes  stronger  ;  but  elective  rulers  can  scarcely 


398  THE  DANGERS  OF 

ever  employ  the  physical  force  of  a  democracy,  without  turn 
ing  the  moral  force,  or  the  power  of  opinion,  against  the  gov 
ernment.  So  that  faction  is  not  unfre -;uently  made  to  triumph 
from  its  own  defeats,  and  to  avenge  in  the  disgrace  and  blood 
of  magistrates  the  crime  of  their  fidelity  to  the  laws. 

As  the  boastful  pretensions  of  the  democratick  system  can 
not  be  too  minutely  exposed,  another  consideration  must  be 
given  to  the  subject. 

THAT  government  certainly  deserves  no  honest  man's  love 
or  support,  which,  from  tjie  very  laws  of  its  being,  carries  ter- 
rour  and  danger  to  the  virtuous,  and  arms  the  vicious  with 
authority  and  power.  The  essence  and,  in  the  opinion  of 
many  thousands  not  yet  cured  of  their  delusions,  the  excellence 
of  democracy  is,  that  it  invests  every  citizen  with  an  equal  pro 
portion  of  power.  A  state  consisting  of  a  million  of  citizens 
has  a  million  sovereigns,  each  of  whom  detests  all  other  sov 
ereignty  but  his  own.  This  very  boast  implies  as  much  of  the 
spirit  of  turbulence  and  insubordination,  as  the  utmost  energy 
of  any  known  regular  government,  even  the  most  rigid,  could 
keep  in  restraint.  It  also  implies  a  state  of  agitation,  that  is 
justly  terrible  to  all  who  love  their  ease,  and  of  instability,  that 
quenches  the  last  hope  of  those  who  would  transmit  their  lib 
erty  to  posterity.  Waving  any  further  pursuit  of  these  reflec 
tions,  let  it  be  resumed,  that,  if  every  man  of  the  million  has 
his  ratable  share  of  power  in  the  community,  then,  instead  of 
restraining  the  -vicious,  they  also  are  armed  with  power,  for 
they  take  their  part :  as  they  are  citizens,  this  cannot  be  re 
fused  them.  Now,  as  they  have  an  interest  in  preventing  the 
execution  of  the  laws,  which,  in  fact,  is  the  apparent  common 
interest  of  their  whole  class,  their  union  will  happen  of  course. 
The  very  first  moment  that  they  do  unite,  which  it  is  ten 
thousand  to  one  will  happen  before  the  form  of  the  democracy  is 
agreed  upon,  and  while  its  plausible  constitution  is  framing, 
that  moment  they  form  a  faction,  and  the  pretended  efficacy  of 
the  democratick  system,  which  is  to  operate  by  the  power  of 
opinion  and  persuasion,  comes  to  an  end.  For  an  imperium  in 
imperio  exists  ;  there  is  a  state  within  the  state,  a  combina- 


AMERICAN  LIBERTY.  399 

tion  interested  and  active  in  hindering  the  will  of  the  majority 
from  being  obeyed. 

BUT  the  -vicious,  we  shall  be  told,  are  very  few  in  such  an 
honest  nation  as  the  American.  How  many  of  our  states  did,  in 
fact,  pass  laws  to  obstruct  the  lawful  operation  of  the  treaty  of 
peace  in  1783  I  and  were  the  -virtuous  men  of  those  states  the 
framers  and  advocates  of  those  laws  ?  What  shall  we  denomi 
nate  the  oligarchy  that  sways  the  authority  of  Virginia  ?  Who  is 
ignorant,  that  the  ruling  power  have  an  interest  to  oppose  jus 
tice  to  creditors  ?  Surely,  after  these  facts  are  remembered,  no 
man  will  say,  tiie  faction  of  the  vicious  is  a  chimera  of  the 
writer's  brain ;  nor,  admitting  it  to  be  real,  will  he  deny,  that 
it  has  proved  itself  potent. 

IT  is  not  however  the  faction  of  debtors  only,  that  is  to  be 
expected  to  arise  under  a  democracy.  Every  bad  passion  that 
dreads  restraint  from  the  laws  will  seek  impunity  and  indul 
gence  in  faction.  The  associates  will  not  come  together  in 
cold  blood.  They  will  not,  like  their  federal  adversaries,  yawn 
over  the  contemplation  of  their  cause,  and  shrink  from  the 
claim  of  its  necessary  perils  and  sacrifices.  They  will  do  all 
that  can  possibly  be  done,  and  they  will  attempt  more.  They 
will  begin  early,  persevere  long,  ask  no  respite  for  themselves, 
and  are  sure  to  triumph,  if  their  enemies  take  any.  Suppose 
at  first  their  numbers  to  be  exceedingly  few,  their  efforts  will 
for  that  reason  be  so  much  the  greater.  They  will  call  them 
selves  the  people  ;  they  will  in  their  name  arraign  every  act  of 
government  as  wicked  and  weak  ;  they  will  oblige  the  rulers 
to  stand  for  ever  on  the  defensive,  as  culprits  at  the  bar  of  an 
offended  publick  With  a  venal  press  at  command,  concealing 
their  number  and  their  infamy,  is  it  to  be  doubted,  that  the 
ignorant  will  soon  or  late  unite  with  the  vicious  ?  Their  union 
is  inevitable ;  and,  when  united,  those  allies  are  powerful 
enough  to  strike  terrour  into  the  hearts  of  the  firmest  rulers. 
It  is  in  vain,  it  is  indeed  childish  to  say,  that  an  enlightened 
people  will  understand  their  own  affairs,  and  thus  the  acts  of  a 
faction  will  be  baffled.  No  people  on  earth  are  or  can  be  so 
enlightened,  as  to  the  details  of  political  affairs.  To  study 


400  THE  DANGERS  OF 

politicks,  so  as  to  know  correctly  the  force  of  the  reasons  for 
a  large  part  of  the  publick  measures,  would  stop  the  labour  of 
the  plough  and  the  hammer  ;  and  how  are  these  million  of 
students  to  have  access  to  the  means  of  information  ? 

WHEN  it  is  thus  apparent,  that  the  vicious  will  have  as  many- 
opportunities  as  inducements  to  inflame  and  deceive,  it  results 
from  the  nature  of  democracy,  that  the  ignorant  will  join,  and 
the  ambitious  will  lead  their  combination.  Who,  then,  will 
deny,  that  the  vicious  are  armed  with  power,  and  the  virtuous 
exposed  to  persecution  and  peril  ? 

IF  a  sense  of  their  danger  compel  these  latter,  at  length,  to 
unite  also  in  self-defence,  it  will  be  late,  probably,  too  late, 
without  means  to  animate  and  cement  their  union,  and  with  no 
hope  beyond  that  of  protracting,  for  a  short  time,  the  certain 
catastrophe  of  their  destruction,  which,  in  fact,  no  democracy 
has  ever  yet  failed  to  accomplish. 

IF,  then,  all  this  is  to  happen,  not  from  accident,  not,  as  the 
shallow  or  base  demagogues  pretend,  from  the  management  of 
monarchists  or  aristocrats,  but  from  the  principles  of  democra 
cy  itself,  as  we  have  attempted  to  demonstrate,  ought  we  not 
to  consider  democracy  as  the  worst  of  all  governments,  or,  if 
there  be  a  worse,  as  the  certain  forerunner  of  that  ?  What 
other  form  of  civil  rule  among  men  so  irresistibly  tends  to  free 
vice  from  restraint,  and  to  subject  virtue  to  persecution  ? 

THE  common  supposition  is,  and  it  is  ever  assumed  as  the 
basis  of  argument,  that  in  a  democracy  the  laws  have  only  to 
command  individuals,  who  yield  a  willing  and  conscientious 
obedience  ;  and  who  would  be  destitute  of  the  force  to  resist, 
if  they  should  lack  the  disposition  to  submit.  But  this  suppo 
sition,  which  so  constantly  triumphs  in  the  newspapers,  utterly 
fails  in  the  trial,  in  our- republick,  which  we  do  not  denominate 
a  democracy.  To  collect  the  tax  on  Virginia  coaches,  we  have 
had  to  exert  all  the  judicial  power  of  the  nation  ;  and  after  that 
had  prevailed,  popularity  was  found  a  greater  treasure  than 
money,  and  the  carriage  tax  was  repealed.  The  tax  on  whis 
key  was  enforced  by  an  army,  and  no  sooner  had  its  receipts 
begun  to  reimburse  the  charges  of  government,  and,  in  some 


AMERICAN  LIBERTY.  401 

measure,  to  equalise  the  Northern  and  Southern  burdens,  but 
the  law  is  annulled. 

WITH  the  example  of  two  rebellions  against  our  revenue 
laws,  it  cannot  be  denied,  that  our  republick  claims  the  sub 
mission,  not  merely  of  weak  individuals,  but  of  powerful  com 
binations,  of  those  whom  distance,  numbers,  and  enthusiasm 
embolden  to  deride  its  authority  and  defy  its  arms.  A  fac 
tion  is  a  sort  of  empire  within  the  empire,  which  acts  by  its 
own  magistrates  and  laws,  and  prosecutes  interests  not  only 
unlike,  but  destructive  to  those  of  the  nation.  The  federalists 
are  accused  of  attempting  to  impart  too  much  energy  to  the 
administration,  and  of  stripping,  with  too  much  severity,  all 
such  combinations  of  their  assumed  importance.  Hence  it  is 
ridiculously  absurd  to  denominate  the  federalists,  the  admirers 
and  disciples  of  Washington,  a  faction. 

BUT  we  shall  be  told,  in  defiance  both  of  fact  and  good  sense, 
that  factions  will  not  exist,  or  will  be  impotent,  if  they  do  ;  for 
the  majority  have  a  right  to  govern,  and  certainly  will  govern 
by  their  representatives.  Let  their  right  be  admitted,  but  they 
certainly  will  not  govern,  in  either  of  two  cases,  both  fairly 
supposeable,  and  likely,  nay  sure  to  happen  in  succession : 
that  a  section  of  country,  a  combination,  party,  or  faction,  call 
it  what  you  will,  shall  prove  daring  and  potent  enough  to  ob 
struct  the  laws  and  to  exempt  itself  from  their  operation  ;  or, 
growing  bolder  with  impunity  and  success,  finally  by  art,  deceit, 
and  perseverance  to  force  its  chiefs  into  power,  and  thus,  in 
stead  of  submitting  to  the  government,  to  bring  the  govern 
ment  into  submission  to  a  faction.  Then  the  forms  and  the 
names  of  a  republick  will  be  used,  and  used  more  ostentatiously 
than  ever ;  but  its  principles  will  be  abused,  and  its  ramparts 
and  defences  laid  flat  to  the  ground. 

THERE  are  many,  who,  believing  that  a  pen-full  of  ink  can, 
impart  a  deathless  energy  to  a  constitution,  and  having  seen, 
with  pride  and  joy,  two  or  three  skins  of  parchment  added,  like 
new  walls  about  a  fortress,  to  our  own,  will  be  filled  with 
astonishment,  and  say,  is  not  our  legislature  divided  ?  our  exe 
cutive  single  ?  our  judiciary  independent  ?  Have  we  not 
51 


402  THE  DANGERS  OF 

amendments  and  bills  of  rights,  excelling  all  compositions  in 
prose  ?  Where,  then,  can  our  danger  lie  ?  Our  government, 
so  we  read,  is  constructed  in  such  a  manner  as  to  defend  itself, 
and  the  people.  We  have  the  greatest  political  security,  for 
we  have  adopted  the  soundest  principles. 

To  most  grown  children,  therefore,  the  existence  of  faction 
will  seem  chimerical.  Yet  did  any  free  state  ever  exist  with 
out  the  most  painful  and  protracted  conflicts  with  this  foe  ?  or 
expire  any  otherwise  than  by  his  triumph  ?  The  spring  is  not 
more  genial  to  the  grain  and  fruits  than  to  insects  and  vermin. 
The  same  sun  that  decks  the  fields  with  flowers,,  thaws  out 
the  serpent  in  the  fen,  and  concocts  his  poison.  Surely,  ive  are 
not  the  people  to  contest  this  position.  Our  present  liberty  was 
born  into  the  world  under  the  knife  of  this  assassin,  and  now 
limps  a  cripple  from  his  violence. 

As  soon  as  such  a  faction  is  known  to  subsist  in  force,  we 
shall  be  told,  the  people  may,  and  because  they  may,  they 
surely  will  rally  to  discomfit  and  punish  the  conspirators.  If 
the  whole  people  in  a  body  are  to  do  this  as  often  as  it  may  be 
necessary,  then  it  seems  our  political  plan  is  to  carry  on  our 
government  by  successive,  or  rather  incessant  re-volutions. 
When  the  people  deliberate  and  act  in  person,  laying  aside 
the  plain  truth,  that  it  is  impossible  they  should,  all  delegated 
authority  is  at  an  end  :  the  representatives  would  be  nothing  in 
the  presence  of  their  assembled  constituents.  Thus  falls  or 
stops  the  machine  of  a  regular  government.  Thus  a  faction,  hos 
tile  to  the  government,  would  ensure  their  success  by  the  very 
remedy  that  is  supposed  effectual  to  disappoint  their  designs. 

MEN  of  a  just  way  of  thinking  will  be  ready  to  renounce 
the  opinions  we  have  been  considering,  and  to  admit,  that 
liberty  is  lost,  where  faction  domineers ;  that  some  security 
must  be  provided  against  its  attacks  ;  and  that  no  elective 
government  can  be  secure  or  orderly,  unless  it  be  invested  by 
the  constitution  itself  with  the  means  of  self-defence.  It  is 
enough  for  the  people  to  approve  the  lawful  use  of  them.  And 
this  for  a  free  government  must  be  the  easiest  thing  in  the 
world. 


AMERICAN  LIBERTY.  403 

Now,  the  contrary  of  this  last  opinion  is  the  truth.  By  a.  free 
government  this  difficulty  is  nearly  or  quite  insuperable  ;  for 
the  audaciousness  and  profligacy  of  faction  is  ever  in  proportion 
to  the  liberty  of  the  political  constitution.  In  a  tyranny  indi 
viduals  are  nothing.  Conscious  of  their  nothingness,  the  spirit 
of  liberty  is  torpid  or  extinct.  But  in  a  free  state  there  is, 
necessarily,  a  great  mass  of  power  left  in  the  hands  of  the  citi 
zens,  with  the  spirit  to  use  and  the  desire  to  augment  it. 
Hence  will  proceed  an  infinity  of  clubs  and  associations,  for 
purposes  often  laudable  or  harmless,  but  not  unfrequently  fac 
tious.  It  is  obvious,  that  the  combination  of  some  hundreds  or 
thousands  for  political  ends  will  produce  a  great  aggregate 
stock  or  mass  of  power.  As  by  combining  they  greatly  aug 
ment  their  power,  for  that  very  reason  they  will  combine  ;  and, 
as  magistrates  would  seldom  like  to  devolve  their  authority 
upon  volunteers,  who  might  offer  to  play  the  magistrate  in 
their  stead,  there  is  almost  nothing  left  for  a  band  of  combined 
citizens  to  do,  but  to  discredit  and  obstruct  the  government  and 
laws.  The  possession  of  power  by  the  magistrate  is  not  so  sure 
to  produce  respect  as  to  kindle  envy ;  and  to  the  envious  it  is 
a  gratification  to  humble  those  who  are  exalted.  But  the  am 
bitious  find  the  publick  discontent  a  passport  to  office — then 
they  must  breed  or  inflame  discontent.  We  have  the  exam 
ple  before  our  eyes. 

Is  it  not  evident,  then,  that  a  free  government  must  exert  a 
great  deal  more  power  to  obtain  obedience  from  an  extensive 
combination  or  faction,  than  would  be  necessary  to  extort  it 
from  a  much  larger  number  of  uncombined  individuals  ?  If  the 
regular  government  has  that  degree  of  power,  which,  let  it  be 
noted,  the  jealousy  of  a  free  people  often  inclines  them  to  with 
hold  ;  and  if  it  should  exercise  its  power  with  promptness  and 
spirit,  a  supposition  not  a  little  improbable,  for  such  govern 
ments  frequently  have  more  strength  than  firmness,  then  the 
faction  may  be,  for  that  time,  repressed  and  kept  from  doing 
mischief.  It  will,  however,  instantly  change  its  pretexts  and 
its  means,  and  renew  the  contest  with  more  art  and  caution, 
and  with  the  advantage  of  all  the  discontents,  which  every  consi- 


404  THE  DANGERS  OF 

erable  popular  agitation  is  sure  to  multiply  and  to  embitter. 
This  immortal  enemy,  whom  it  is  possible  to  bind,  though  only 
for  a  time,  and  in  flaxen  chains,  but  not  to  kill  ;  who  may  be 
baffled,  but  cannot  be  disarmed  ;  who  is  never  weakened  by 
defeat,  nor  discouraged  by  disappointment,  again  tries  and  wears 
out  the  strength  of  the  government  and  the  temper  of  the  peo 
ple.  It  is  a  game  which  the  factious  will  never  be  weary  of 
playing,  because  they  play  for  an  empire,  yet  on  their  own  part 
hazard  nothing.  If  they  fail,  they  lose  only  their  ticket,  and  say, 
draw  your  lottery  again  ;  if  they  win,  as  in  the  end  they  must 
and  will,  if  the  constitution  has  not  provided  within^  or  unless 
the  people  will  bring,  which  they  will  not  long,  from  without, 
some  energy  to  hinder  their  success,  it  will  be  complete  ;  for 
conquering  parties  never  content  themselves  with  half  the  fruits 
of  victoiy.  Their  power  once  obtained  can  be  and  will  be  con 
firmed  by  nothing  but  the  terrour  or  weakness  of  the  real  peo 
ple.  Justice  will  shrink  from  the  bench,  and  tremble  at  her 
own  bar. 

As  property  is  the  object  of  the  great  mass  of  every  faction, 
the  rules  that  keep  it  sacred  will  be  annulled,  or  so  far  shaken, 
as  to  bring  enough  of  it  within  the  grasp  of  the  dominant  party 
to  reward  their  partisans  with  booty.  But  the  chieftains,  thirst 
ing  only  for  dominion,  will  search  for  the  means  of  extending 
or  establishing  it.  They  will,  of  course,  innovate,  till  the  ves 
tiges  of  private  right,  and  of  restraints  on  publick  authority, 
are  effaced  ;  until  the  real  people  are  stripped  of  all  privilege 
and  influence,  and  become  even  more  abject  and  spiritless  than 
weak.  The  many  may  be  deluded,  but  the  success  of  a  faction 
is  ever  the  victoiy  of  a  few  ;  and  the  power  of  the  few  can  be 
supported  by  nothing  but  force.  This  catastrophe  is  fatal. 

THE  people,  it  will  be  thought,  will  see  their  errour,  and 
return.  But  there  is  no  return  to  liberty.  What  the  fire  of 
faction  does  not  destroy,  it  will  debase.  Those,  who  have  once 
tasted  of  the  cup  of  sovereignty,  will  be  unfitted  to  be  subjects ; 
and  those,  who  have  not,  will  scarcely  form  a  wish  beyond  the 
unmolested  ignominy  of  slaves. 


AMERICAN  LIBERTY.  405 

BUT  will  those  who  scorn  to  live  at  all,  unless  they  can  live 
free,  will  these  noble  spirits  abandon  the  pubiick  cause  ?  Will 
they  not  break  their  chains  on  the  heads  of  their  oppressors  ? 
Suppose  they  attempt  it,  then  we  have  a  civil  war ;  and  when  po 
litical  diseases  require  the  sword,  the  remedy  will  kill.  Tyrants 
may  be  dethroned,  and  usurpers  expelled  and  punished  ;  but 
the  sword,  once  drawn,  cannot  be  sheathed.  Whoever  holds  it, 
must  rule  by  it ;  and  that  rule,  though  victory  should  give  it 
to  the  best  men  and  the  honestest  cause,  cannot  be  liberty. 
Though  painted  as  a  goddess,  she  is  mortal,  and  her  spirit, 
once  severed  by  the  sword,  can  be  evoked  no  more  from  the 
shades. 

Is  this  catastrophe  too  distant  to  be  viewed,  or  too  improba 
ble  to  be  dreaded  ?  I  should  not  think  it  so  formidably  near  as 
I  do,  if  in  the  short  interval  of  impending  fate,  in  which  alone 
it  can  be  of  any  use  to  be  active,  the  heart  of  every  honest  man 
in  the  nation,  or  even  in  New-England,  was  penetrated  with 
the  anxiety  that  oppresses  my  own  *.  Then  the  subversion  of 
the  public  liberty  would  at  least  be  delayed,  if  it  could  not  be 
prevented.  Her  maladies  might  be  palliated,  if  not  cured.  She 
might  long  drag  on  the  life  of  an  invalid,  instead  of  soon  suf 
fering  the  death  of  a  martyr. 

THE  soft,  timid  sons  of  luxury  love  liberty  as  well  as  it  is 
possible  they  should,  to  love  pleasure  better.  They  desire  to 
sleep  in  security,  and  to  enjoy  protection,  without  being  molest 
ed  to  give  it.  Whi'e  all,  who  are  not  devoted  to  pleasure,  arc 
eager  in  the  pursuit  of  wealth,  how  will  it  be  possible  to  rouse 
such  a  spirit  of  liberty,  as  can  alone  secure,  or  prolong  its  pos 
session  ?  For  if  in  the  extraordinary  perils  of  the  republick,  the 
citizens  will  not  kindle  with  a  more  than  ordinary,  with  a 
heroick  flame,  its  cause  will  be  abandoned  without  effort,  and 
lost  beyond  redemption.  But  if  the  faithful  votaries  of  liberty, 
uncertain  what  counsels  to  follow,  should,  for  the  present, 

*  This  short  paragraph  explains  the  writer's  motive  for  presenting  such  a  gloomy  pic 
ture  of  the  affairs  of  our  country.  He  hoped,  br  alarming  llie  honest  part  of  onr  citizen?, 
to  defer,  or  mitigate  onr  fine. 


406  THE  DANGERS  OF 

withhold  their  exertions,  will  they  not  at  least  bestow  their 
attention  ?  Will  they  not  fix  it,-  with  an  unusual  intensity  of 
thought,  upon  the  scene  ;  and  will  they  not  fortify  their  nerves 
to  contemplate  a  prospect  that  is  shaded  with  horrour,  and 
already  flashes  with  tempest  ? 

IF  the  positions  laid  down  as  theory  could  be  denied,  the 
brief  history  of  the  federal  administration  would  establish  them. 
It  was  first  confided  to  the  truest,  and  purest  patriot  that  ever 
lived.  It  succeeded  a  period,  dismal  and  dark,  and,  like  the 
morning  sun,  lighted  up  a  sudden  splendour,  that  was  gratui 
tous,  for  it  consumed  nothing,  but  its  genial  rays  cherished 
the  powers  of  vegetation,  while  they  displayed  its  exuberance. 
There  was  no  example,  scarcely  a  pretence  of  oppression  ;  yet 
faction,  basking  in  those  rays,  and  sucking  venom  from  the 
ground,  even  then  cried  out,  "  O  sun,  I  tell  thee,  how  I  hate  thy 
beams."  1-' action  was  organized  sooner  than  the  government. 

IF  the  most  urgent  publick  reasons  could  ever  silence  or 
satisfy  the  spirit  of  faction,  the  adoption  of  the  new  constitu 
tion  would  have  been  prompt  and  unanimous.  The  govern 
ment  of  a  great  nation  had  barely  revenue  enough  to  buy  sta 
tionary  for  its  clerks,  or  to  pay  the  salary  of  the  door-keeper. 
Publick  faith  and  publick  force  were  equally  out  of  the  ques 
tion,  for  as  it  respected  either  authority  or  resources,  the  cor 
poration  of  a  college,  or  the  missionary  society  were  greater 
potentates  than  congress.  Our  federal  government  had  not 
merely  fallen  into  imbecility  and,  of  course,  into  contempt, 
but  the  oligarchical  factions  in  the  large  states  had  actually 
made  great  advances  in  the  usurpation  of  its  powers.  The 
king  of  New-York  levied  imposts  on  Jersey  and  Connecticut ; 
and  the  nobles  of  Virginia  bore  with  impatience  their  tributary 
dependence  on  Baltimore  and  Philadelphia.  Our  discontents 
were  fermenting  into  civil  war  ;  and  that  would  have  multipli 
ed  and  exasperated  our  discontents. 

IMPENDING  publick  evils,  so  obvious  and  so  near,  happily  rous 
ed  all  the  patriotism  of  the  country  ;  but  they  roused  its  ambi 
tion  too.  The  great  state  chieftains  found  the  sovereign  power 
unoccupied,  and,  like  the  lieutenants  of  Alexander,  each  em- 


AMERICAN  LIBERTY.  407 

ployed  intrigue,  and  would  soon  have  employed  force,  to  erect 
his  province  into  a  separate  monarchy  or  aristocracy.  Po 
pular  republican  names  would,  indeed,  have  been  used,  but 
in  the  struggles  of  ambition  they  would  have  been  used  only 
to  cloak  usurpation  and  tyranny.  How  late,  and  with  what 
sourness  and  reluctance  did  New-York  and  Virginia  renounce 
the  hopes  of  aggrandizement,  which  their  antiiederal  leaders 
had  so  passionately  cherished  !  The  opposition  to  the  adop 
tion  of  the  federal  constitution  was  not  a  controversy  about 
principles ;  it  was  a  struggle  for  power.  In  the  great  states, 
the  ruling  party,  with  that  sagacity  which  too  often  accom 
panies  inordinate  ambition,  instantly  discerned,  that,  if  the 
new  government  should  go  into  operation  with  all  the  energy 
that  its  letter  and  spirit  would  authorize,  they  must  cease  to 
rule—still  worse,  they  must  submit  to  be  ruled,  nay,  worst 
of  all,  they  must  be  ruled  by  their  equals,  a  condition  of  real 
wretchedness  and  supposed  disgrace,  which  our  impatient 
tyrants  anticipated  with  instinctive  and  unspeakable  horrour. 

To  prevent  this  dreaded  result  of  the  new  constitution, 
which,  by  securing  a  real  legal  equality  to  all  the  citizens, 
would  bring  them  down  to  an  equality,  their  earliest  care  was 
to  bind  the  ties  of  their  factious  union  more  closely  together; 
and  by  combining  their  influence  and  exerting  the  utmost 
malignity  of  their  art,  to  render  the  new  government  odious 
and  suspected  by  the  people.  Thus,  conceived  in  jealousy  and 
born  in  weakness  and  dissension,  they  hoped  to  see  it  sink, 
like  its  predecessor,  the  confederation,  into  contempt.  Hence 
it  was,  that  in  every  great  state  a  faction  arose  with  the 
fiercest  hostility  to  the  federal  constitution,  and  active  in 
devising  and  pursuing  every  scheme,  however  unwarrant 
able  or  audacious,  that  would  obstruct  the  establishment  of 
any  power  in  the  state  superiour  to  its  own. 

IT  is  undeniably  true,  therefore,  that  faction  was  organized 
sooner  than  the  new  government.  We  are  not  to  charge  this 
event  to  the  accidental  rivalships  or  disgusts  of  leading  men, 
but  to  the  operation  of  the  invariable  principles  that  preside 


408  THE  DANGERS  OF 

over  human  actions  and  political  affairs.  Power  had  slipped 
out  of  the  feeble  hands  of  the  old  congress  ;  and  the  world's 
power,  like  its  wealth,  can  never  lie  one  moment  without  a 
possessor.  The  states  had  instantly  succeeded  to  the  vacant 
sovereignty  ;  and  the  leading  men  in  the  great  states,  for  the 
small  ones  were  inactive  from  a  sense  of  their  insignificance, 
engrossed  their  authority.  Where  the  executive  authority 
was  single,  the  governour,  as,  for  instance,  in  New-York,  felt 
his  brow  encircled  with  a  diadem  ;  but  in  those  states  where 
the  governour  is  a  mere  cypher,  the  men  who  influenced  the 
assembly  governed  the  state,  and  there  an  oligarchy  estab 
lished  itself.  When  has  it  been  seen  in  the  world,  that  the 
possession  of  sovereign  power  was  regarded  with  indifference, 
or  resigned  without  effort  ?  If  all  that  is  ambition  in  the  heart 
of  man  had  slept  in  America,  till  the  era  of  the  new  constitu 
tion,  the  events  of  that  period  would  not  merely  have  awak 
ened  it  into  life,  but  have  quickened  it  into  all  the  agitations 
of  frenzy. 

THEN  commenced  an  active  struggle  for  power.  Faction 
resolved,  that  the  new  government  should  not  exist  at  all, 
or,  if  that  could  not  be  prevented,  that  it  should  exist  without 
energy.  Accordingly,  the  presses  of  that  time  teemed  with 
calumny  and  invective.  Before  the  new  government  had 
done  any  thing,  there  was  nothing  oppressive  or  tyrannical 
which  it  was  not  accused  of  meditating ;  and  when  it  began 
its  operations,  there  was  nothing  wise  or  fit  that  it  was  not 
charged  with  neglecting  ;  nothing  right  or  beneficial  that  it 
did,  but  from  an  insidious  design  to  delude  and  betray  the 
people.  The  cry  of  usurpation  and  oppression  was  louder 
then,  when  all  was  prosperous  and  beneficent,  than  it  has 
been  since,  when  the  judiciary  is  violently  abolished,  the 
judges  dragged  to  the  culprit's  bar,  the  constitution  changed 
to  prevent  a  change  of  rulers,  and  the  path  plainly  marked 
out  and  already  half  travelled  over  Tor  the  ambition  of  those 
rulers  to  reign  in  contempt  of  the  people's  votes  and  on  the 
ruins  of  their  libertv. 


AMERICAN  LIBERTY.  409 

HE  is  certainly  a  political  novice  or  a  hypocrite,  who  will 
pretend,  that  the  an  ti  federal  opposition  to  the  government 
is  to  be  ascribed  to  the  concern  of  the  people  for  their 
liberties^  rather  than  to  the  profligate  ambition  of  their  dema 
gogues,  eager  for  power,  and  suddenly  alarmed  by  the  immi 
nent  danger  of  losing-  it ;  demagogues,  who,  leading  lives 
like  Clodius,  and  with  the  maxims  of  Cato  in  their  mouths, 
cherishing  principles  like  Catiline,  have  acted  steadily  on  a 
plan  of  usurpation  like  Cesar.  Their  labour  for  twelve 
years  was  to. inflame  and  deceive  ;  and  their  recompense,  for 
the  last  four,  has  been  to  degrade  and  betray. 

ANY  person  who  considers  the  instability  of  all  authority, 
that  is  not  only  derived  from  the  multitude,  but  wanes  or 
increases  with  the  ever  changing  phases  of  their  levity  and  ca 
price,  will  pronounce,  that  the  federal  government  was  from 
the  first,  and  from  its  very  nature  and  organization,  fated  to 
sink  under  the  rivalship  of  its  state  competitors  for  dominion. 
Virginia  has  never  been  more  federal  than  it  was,  when,  from 
considerations  of  policy,  and,  perhaps,  in  the  hope  of  future 
success  from  its  intrigues,  it  adopted  the  new  constitution  ; 
for  it  has  never  desisted  from  obstructing  its  measures  and 
urging  every  scheme  that  would  reduce  it  back  again  to  the 
imbecility  of  the  old  confederation.  To  the  dismay  of  every 
true  patriot,  these  arts  have  at  length  fatally  succeeded ;  and 
our  system  of  government  now  differs  very  little  from  what 
it  would  have  been,  if  the  impost  proposed  by  the  old  con 
gress  had  been  granted,  and  the  new  federal  constitution  had 
never  been  adopted  by  the  states.  *  In  that  case,  the  states 
being  left  to  their  natural  inequality,  the  small  states  would 
have  been,  as  they  now  are,  nothing,  and  Virginia,  potent  in 
herself,  more  potent  by  her  influence  and  intrigues,  and 
uncontrolled  by  a  superiour  federal  head,  would,  of  course, 
have  been  every  thing.  Baltimore,  like  Antium,  and  Phila 
delphia,  like  Capua,  would  have  bowed  their  proud  necks  to 

*  This  was  written  in  January,  1805,  when  the  judicial  power  was  removed,  and  other 
dilapidations  of  the  federal  edifice  in  progress. 

52 


410  THE  DANGERS  OF 

a  new  Roman  yoke.  If  any  of  her  more  powerful  neigh 
bours  had  resisted  her  dominion,  she  would  have  spread  her 
factions  into  their  bosoms,  and,  like  the  Marsi  and  the  Sam- 
nites,  they  would,  at  last,  though,  perhaps,  somewhat  the 
later  for  their  valour,  have  graced  the  pomp  of  her  triumphs, 
and  afterwards  assisted  to  maintain  the  terrour  of  her  arms. 

So  far  as  state  opposition  was  concerned,  it  does  not  appear, 
that  it  has  been  overcome  in  any  of  the  great  states  by  the 
mild  and  successful  operation  of  the  federal  government.  But 
if  states  had  not  been  its  rivals,  yet  the  matchless  industry 
and  close  combination  of  the  factious  individuals  who  guided 
the  antifederal  presses  would,  in  the  end,  tnough,  perhaps, 
not  so  soon  as  it  has  been  accomplished  by  the  help  of  Vir 
ginia,  have  disarmed  and  prostrated  the  federal  government. 
We  have  the  experience  of  France  before  our  eyes  to  prove, 
that,  with  such  a  city  as  Paris,  it  is  utterly  impossible  to  sup 
port  a  free  republican  system.  A  profligate  press  has  more 
authority  than  morals  ;  and  a  faction  will  possess  more  energy 
than  magistrates  or  laws. 

Ox  evidence  thus  lamentably  clear,  I  found  my  opinion, 
that  the  federalists  can  never  again  become  the  dominant 
party  ;  in  other  words,  the  publick  reason  and  virtue  cannot 
be  again,  as  in  our  first  twelve  years,  and  never  will  be  again 
the  governing  power,  till  our  government  has  passed  through 
its  revolutionary  changes.  Every  faction  that  may  happen 
to  rule  will  pursue  but  two  objects,  its  vengeance  on  the 
fallen  party,  and  the  security  of  its  own  power  against  any 
new  one  that  may  rise  to  contest  it.  As  to  the  glory  that 
wise  rulers  partake,  when  they  obtain  it  for  their  nation,  no 
person  of  understanding  will  suppose,  that  the  gaudy,  ephe 
meral  insects,  that  bask  and  flutter  no  longer  than  while  the 
sun  of  popularity  shines  without  a  cloud,  will  either  possess 
the  means  or  feel  the  passion  for  it.  What  have  the  Con- 
dorcets  and  Rolands  of  to-day  to  hope  or  to  enjoy  from  the 
personal  reputation  or  publick  happiness  of  to-morrow  ? 
Their  objects  are  ull  selfish,  all  temporary.  Mr.  Jefferson's 


AMERICAN  LIBERTY.  411 

letters  to  Mazzei  or  Paine,  his  connexion  with  Callender,  or 
his  mean  condescensions  to  France  and  Spain,  will  add 
nothing  to  the  weight  of  his  disgrace  with  the  party  that  shall 
supplant  him.  To  be  their  enemy  will  be  disgrace  enough, 
and  so  far  a  refuge  for  his  fame,  as  it  will  stop  all  curiosity 
and  inquiry  into  particulars.  Every  party  that  has  fallen  in 
France  has  been  overwhelmed  with  infamy,  but  without 
proofs  or  discrimination.  If  time  and  truth  have  furnished 
any  materials  for  the  vindication  of  the  ex-rulers,  there  has, 
nevertheless,  been  no  instance  of  the  return  of  the  publick 
to  pity,  or  of  the  injured  to  power.  The  revolution  has  no 
retrograde  steps.  Its  course  is  onward  from  the  patriots 
and  statesmen  to  the  hypocrites  and  cowards,  and  onward 
still  through  successive  committees  of  ruffians,  till  some  one 
ruffian  happens  to  be  a  hero.  Then  chance  no  longer  has 
a  power  over  events,  for  this  last  inevitably  becomes  an 
emperour. 

THE  restoration  of  the  federalists  to  their  merited  influence 
in  the  government  supposes  two  things,  the  slumber  or  ex 
tinction  of  faction,  and  the  efficacy  of  publick  morals.  It  sup 
poses  an  interval  of  calm,  when  reason  will  dare  to  speak,  and 
prejudice  itself  will  incline  to  hear.  Then,  it  is  still  hoped 
by  many,  Nova  firogenies  caelo  demittitur  alto,  the  genuine 
publick  voice  would  call  wisdom  into  power ;  and  the  love  of 
country,  which  is  the  morality  of  politicks,  would  guard  and 
maintain  its  authority. 

ARE  not  these  the  visions  that  delight  a  poet's  fancy,  but 
will  never  revisit  the  statesman's  eyes  ?  When  will  faction 
sleep  ?  Not  till  its  labours  of  vengeance  and  ambition  are 
over.  Faction,  we  know,  is  the  twin  brother  of  our  liberty, 
and  born  first ;  and,  as  we  are  told  in  the  fable  of  Castor  and 
Pollux,  the  only  one  of  the  two  that  is  immortal.  As  long 
as  there  is  a  faction  in  full  force,  and  possessed  of  the  govern 
ment  too,  the  publick  will  and  the  publick  reason  must  have 
power  to  compel,  as  well  as  to  convince,  or  they  will  convince 
without  reforming.  Bad  men,  who  rise  by  intrigue,  may  be 
dispossessed  by  worse  men,  who  rise  over  their  heads  by 


412  THE  DANGERS  OF 

deeper  intrigue  ;  but  what  has  the  publick  reason  to  do,  but 
to  deplore  its  silence  or  to  polish  its  chains  ?  This  last  we 
find  is  now  the  case  in  France.  All  the  talent  of  that  coun 
try  is.  employed  to  illustrate  the  virtues  and  exploits  of  that 
chief,  who  has  made  a  nation  happy  by  putting  an  end  to  i.he 
agitations  of  what  they  called  their  liberty,  and  who  naturally 
enough  insist,  that  they  enjoy  more  glory  than  any  other 
people,  because  they  are  more  terrible  to  all. 

THE  publick  reason,  therefore,  is  so  little  in  a  condition  to 
re-establish  the  federal  cause,  that  it  \vill  not  long  maintain 
its  own.  Do  we  not  see  our  giddy  multitude  celebrate  with 
joy  the  triumphs  of  a  party  over  some  essential  articles  of 
our  constitution,  and  recently  over  one  integral  and  indepen 
dent  branch  of  our  government  ?  When  our  Roland  falls,  our 
Dan  ton  will  be  greeted  with  as  Iqud  a  peal  and  as  -splendid  a 
triumph.  If  federalism  could  by  a  miracle  resume  the  reins 
of  power,  unless  political  virtue  and  pure  morals  should 
return  also,  those  reins  would  soon  drop  or  be  snatched  from 
its  hands. 

BY  political  virtue  is  meant  that  love  of  country  diffused 
through  the  society  and  ardent  in  each  individual,  that  would 
dispose,  or  rather  impel  every  one  to  do  or  suffer  much  for 
his  country,  and  permit  no  one  to  do  any  thing  against  it. 
The  Romans  sustained  the  hardships  and  dangers  of  military 
service,  which  fell  not,  as  amongst  modern  nations,  on  the 
dregs  of  society,  but,  till  the  time  of  Marius,  exclusively  on 
the  flower  of  the  middle  and  noble  classes.  They  sustained 
them,  nevertheless,  both  with  constancy  and  alacrity,  because 
tne  excellence  of  life,  every  Roman  thought,  was  glory,  and 
the  excellence  of  each  man's  glory  lay  in  its  redounding  to 
the  splendour  and  extent  of  the  empire  of  Rome. 

Is  there  any  resemblance  in  all  this  to  the  habits  and  pas 
sions  that  predominate  in  America  ?  Are  not  our  people 
wholly  engrossed  by  the  pursuit  of  wealth  and  pleasure  ? 
Though  grouped  together  into  a  society,  the  propensities  of 
the  individual  still  prevail ;  and  if  the  nation  discovers  the 


AMERICAN  LIBERTY.  413 

rudiments  of  any  character,  they  are  yet  to  be  developed. 
In  forming  it,  have  we  not  ground  to  fear,  that  the  sour,  dis 
social,  malignant  spirit  of  our  politicks  will  continue  to  find 
more  to  dread  and  hate  in  party,  than  tQ  love  and  reverence 
in  our  country  ?  What  foundation  can  there  be  for  that  polit 
ical  virtue  to  rest  upon,  while  the  virtue  of  the  society  is 
proscribed,  and  its  vice  lays  an  exclusive  claim  to  emolu 
ment  and  honour  ?  And  as  long  as  faction  governs,  it  must 
look  to  all  that  is  vice  in  the  state  for  its  force,  and  to  all  that 
is  virtue  for  its  plunder.  It  is  not  merely  the  choice  of  fac 
tion,  though,  no  doubt,  base  agents  are  to  be  preferred  for 
base  purposes,  but  it  is  its  necessity  also,  to  keep  men  of  true 
worth  depressed  by  keeping  the  turbulent  and  worthless 
contented. 

How,  then,  can  love  of  country  take  root  and  grow  in  a 
soil,  from  which  every  valuable  plant  has  thus  been  plucked 
up  and  thrown  away  as  a  weed  ?  How  can  we  forbear  to 
identify  the  government  with  the  country  ?  and  how  is  it 
possible,  that  we  should  at  the  same  time  lavish  all  the  ar 
dour  of  our  affection,  and  yet  withhold  every  emotion  either 
of  confidence  or  esteem  ?  It  is  said,  that  in  republicks  ma 
jorities  invariably  oppress  minorities.  Can  there  be  any  real 
patriotism  in  a  state,  which  is  thus  filled  with  those  who  ex 
ercise  and  those  who  suffer  tyranny  ?  But  how  much  less 
reason  has  any  man  to  love  that  country,  in  which  the  voice 
of  the  majority  is  counterfeited,  or  the  vicious,  ignorant,  and 
needy  are  the  instruments,  and  the  wise  and  worthy  are  the 
victims  of  oppression  ? 

WHEN  we  talk  of  patriotism  as  the  theme  of  declamation, 
it  is  not  very  material,  that  we  should  know  with  any  preci 
sion  what  we  mean.  It  is  a  subject  on  which  hypocrisy  will 
seem  to  ignorance  to  be  eloquent,  because  all  of  it  will  be 
received  and  well  received  as  flattery.  If,  however,  we 
search  for  a  principle  or  sentiment,  general  and  powerful 
enough  to  produce  national  effects,  capable  of  making  a  peo 
ple  act  with  constancy,  or  suffer  with  fortitude,  is  there  any 


414  THE  DANGERS  OF 

thing  in  our  situation  that  could  have  produced,  or  that  can 
cherish  it  ?  The  straggling  settlements  of  the  Southern  part 
of  the  union,  which  now  is  the  governing  part,  have  been 
formed  by  emigrants  from  almost  every  nation  of  Europe, 
Safe  in  their  solitudes  alike  from  the  annoyance  of  enemies 
and  of  government,  it  is  infinitely  more  probable,  that  they 
"will  sink  into  barbarism  than  rise  to  the  dignity  of  national 
sentiment  and  character.  Patriotism,  to  be  a  powerful  or 
steady  principle  of  action,  must  be  deeply  imbued  by  edu 
cation  and  strongly  impressed  both  by  the  policy  of  the  gov 
ernment  and  the  course  of  events.  To  love  our  country  with 
ardour,  we  must  often  have  some  fears  for  its  safety  ;  our 
affection  will  be  exalted  in  its  distress ;  and  our  self-esteem 
•will  glow  on  the  contemplation  of  its  glory.  It  is  only  by 
such  diversified  and  incessant  exercise,  that  the  sentiment 
can  become  strong  in  the  individual,  or  be  diffused  over  the 
nation. 

BUT  how  can  that  nation  have  any  such  affinities,  any  sense 
of  patriotism,  whose  capacious  wilderness  receives  and  se 
parates  from  each  other  the  successive  troops  of  emigrants 
from  all  other  nations,  men  who  remain  ignorant,  or  learn 
only  from  the  newspapers,  that  they  are  countrymen,  who 
think  it  their  r-ght  to  be  exempted  from  all  tax,  restraint,  or 
control,  and,  of  course,  that  they  have  nothing  to  do  with  or 
for  their  country,  but  to  make  rulers  for  it,  who,  after  they 
are  made,  are  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  their  makers — a 
country  too,  which  they  are  sure  will  not  be  invaded,  and 
cannot  be  enslaved  ?  Are  not  the  wandering  Tartars  or  Indian 
hunters  at  least  as  susceptible  of  patriotism  as  these  strag 
glers  in  our  Western  forests,  and  infinitely  fonder  of  glory  ? 
It  is  difficult  to  conceive  of  a  country,  which,  from  the  man 
ner  of  its  settlement,  or  the  manifest  tendencies  of  its  politicks 
is  more  destitute  or  more  incapable  of  being  inspired  with 
political  virtue. 

WHAT  foundation  remains,  then,  for  the  hopes  of  those 
\vho  expect  to  see  the  federalists  again  invested  with  power  : 


AMERICAN  LIBERTY.  415 

SHALL  we  be  told,  that,  if  the  nation  is  not  animated  \vith 
publick  spirit,  the  individuals  are  at  least  fitted  to  be  good 
citizens  by  the  purity  of  their  morals?  But  what  are  morals 
without  restraints  ?  and  how  will  merely  voluntary  restraints 
be  maintained  ?  How  long  will  sovereigns,  as  the  people  are 
made  to  fancy  they  are,  insist  more  upon  checks  than  prero 
gatives  ?  Ask  Mr.  ***  and  judge  Chase. 

BESIDES,  in  political  reasoning  it  is  generally  overlooked, 
that,  if  the  existence  of  morals  should  encourage  a  people  to 
prefer  a  democratick  system,  the  operation  of  that  system 
is  sure  to  destroy  their  morals.  Power  in  such  a  society 
cannot  long  have  any  regular  control ;  and,  without  control, 
it  is  itself  a  vice.  Is  there  in  human  aftairs  an  occasion  of 
profligacy  more  shameless  or  more  contagious  than  a  gene 
ral  election  ?  Every  spring  gives  birth  and  gives  wings  to 
this  epidemick  mischief.  Then  begins  a  sort  of  tillage,  that 
turns  up  to  the  sun  and  air  the  most  noxious  weeds  in  the 
kindliest  soil  ;  or  to  speak  still  more  seriously,  it  is  a  mortal 
pestilence,  that  begins  with  rottenness  in  the  marrow.  A 
democratick  society  will  soon  find  its  morals  the  incum- 
brance  of  its  race,  the  surly  companion  of  its  licentious 
joys.  It  will  encourage  its  demagogues  to  impeach  and  per 
secute  the  magistracy  till  it  is  no  longer  disquieted.  In  a 
word,  there  will  not  be  morals  without  justice  ;  and  though 
justice  might  possibly  support  a  democracy,  yet  a  democracy 
cannot  possibly  support  justice. 

ROME  was  never  weary  of  making  laws  for  that  end,  and 
failed.  France  has  had  nearly  as  many  laws  as  soldiers,  yet 
never  had  justice  or  liberty  for  one  day.  Nevertheless,  there 
can  be  no  doubt,  that  the  ruling  faction  has  often  desired  to 
perpetuate  its  authority  by  establishing  justice.  The  diffi 
culties,  however,  lie  in  the  nature  of  the  thing ;  for  in  de 
mocratick  states  there  are  ever  more  volunteers  to  destroy 
than  to  build  ;  and  nothing  that  is  restraint  can  be  erected, 
without  being  odious,  nor  maintained,  if  it  is.  Justice  her- 


416  THE  DANGERS  OF 

self  must  be  built  on  a  loose  foundation,  and  every  villain's 
hand  is,  of  course,  busy  to  pluck  out  the  underpinning.  In 
stead  of  being  the  awful  power  that  is  to  control  the -popular 
passions,  she  descends  from  the  height  of  her  temple,  and 
becomes  the  cruel  and  vindictive  instrument  of  them. 

FEDERALISM  was,  therefore,  manifestly  founded  on  amis- 
take,  on  the  sypposed  existence  of  sufficient  political  virtue, 
and  on  the  permanency  and  authority  of  the  publick  morals. 

THE  party  now  in  power  committed  no  such  mistake. 
They  acted  on  the  knowledge  of  what  men  actually  are,  not 
what  they  ought  to  be.  Instead  of  enlightening  the  popular 
understanding,  their  business  was  to  bewilder  it.  They  knew, 
that  the  vicious,  on  whom  society  makes  war,  would  join 
them  in  their  attack  upon  government.  They  inflamed  the 
ignorant ;  they  flattered  the  vain  ;  they  offered  novelty  to  the 
restless;  and  promised  plunder  to  the  base.  The  envious 
were  assured,  that  the  great  should  fall ;  and  the  ambitious, 
that  they  should  become  great.  The  federal  power,  propped 
by  nothing  but  opinion,  fell,  not  bacause  it  deserved  its  fall,  but 
because  its  principles  of  action  were  more  exalted  and  pure 
than  the  people  could  support. 

IT  is  now  undeniable,  that  the  federal  administration  was 
blameless.  It  has  stood  the  scrutiny  of  time,  and  passed 
unharmed  through  the  ordeal  of  its  enemies.  With  all  the 
evidence  of  its  conduct  in  their  possession,  and  with  servile 
majorities  at  their  command,  it  has  not  been  in  their  power, 
much  as  they  desired  it,  to  fix  any  reproach  on  their  pre 
decessors. 

IT  is  the  opinion  of  a  few,  but  a  very  groundless  opinion, 
that  the  cause  of  order  will  be  re-established  by  the  splitting 
of  the  reigning  jacobins  ;  or,  if  that  should  not  take  place 
soon,  the  union 'will  be  divided,  and  the  Northern  confede 
racy  compelled  to  provide  for  its  own  liberty.  Why,  it  is 
said,  should  we  expect,  that  the  union  of  the  bad  will  be  per 
fect,  when  that  of  the  Washington  party,  though  liberty  and 
property  were  at  stake,  has  been  broken  ?  And  why  should 


AMERICAN  LIBERTY.  4 IT 

it  be  supposed,  that  the  Northern  states,  who  possess  so  pro 
digious  a  preponderance  of  white  population,  of  industry, 
commerce,  and  civilization  over  the  Southern,  will  remain 
subject  to  Virginia  ?  Popular  delusion  cannot  last,  and  as 
soon  as  the  opposition  of  the  federalists  ceases  to  be  feared, 
the  conquerors  will  divide  into  new  factions,  and  either  the 
federalists  will  be  called  again  into  power,  or  the- union  will  be 
severed  into  two  empires. 

BY  some  attention  to  the  nature  of  a  democracy,  both  these 
conjectures,  at  least  so  far  as  they  support  any  hopes  of  the 
publick  liberty,  will  be  discredited. 

THERE  is  no  society  without  jacobins  ;  no  free  society 
without  a  formidable  host  of  them  ;  and  no  democracy,  whose 
powers  they  will  not  usurp,  nor  whose  liberties,  if  it  be  not 
absurd  to  suppose  a  democracy  can  have  any,  they  will  not 
destroy.  A  nation  must  be  exceedingly  well  educated,  in  which 
the  ignorant  and  the  credulous  are  few.  Athens,  with  all  its 
wonderful  taste  and  literature,  poured  them  into  her  popular 
assemblies  by  thousands.  It  is  by  no  means  certain,  that  a 
nation,  composed  wholly  of  scholars  and  philosophers,  would 
contain  less  presumption,  political  ignorance,  levity,  and  extra 
vagance  than  another  state,  peopled  by  tradesmen,  farmers, 
and  men  of  business,  without  a  metaphysician  or  speculatist 
ajnong  them.  The  opulent  in  Holland  were  the  friends  of 
those  French  who  subdued  their  country,  and  enslaved  them. 
It  was  the  well-dressed,  the  learned,  or,  at  least,  the  conceited 
mob  of  France  that  did  infinitely  more  than  the  mere  rabble 
of  Paris,  to  overturn  the  throne  of  the  Bourbons.  The  mul 
titude  were  made  giddy  with  projects  of  innovation,  before 
they  were  armed  with  pikes  to  enforce  them. 

As  there  is  nothing  really  excellent  in  our  governments,  that 
is  not  novel  in  point  of  institution,  and  which  faction  has  not 
represented  as  old  in  abuse,  the  natural  vanity,  presumption, 
and  restlessness  of  the  human  heart  have,  from  the  first,  afford 
ed  the  strength  of  a  host  to  the  jacobins  of  our  country.  The 
ambitious  desperadoes  are  the  natural  leaders  of  this  host. 


418  THE  DANGERS  OF 

Now,  though  such  leaders  may  have  many  occasions  of  jea 
lousy  and  discord  with  one  another,  especially  in  the  division 
of  power  and  booty,  is  it  not  absurd  to  suppose,  that  any  set  of 
them  will  endeavour  to  restore  both  to  the  right  owners  ?  Do 
we  expect  a  self-denying  ordinance  from  the  sons  of  violence 
and  rapine  ?  Are  not  those  remarkably  inconsistent  with  them 
selves,  who  say,  our  republican  system  is  a  government  of 
justice  and  order,  that  was  freely  adopted  in  peace,  subsists  by 
morals,  and  whose  office  it  is  to  ask  counsel  of  the  wise  and 
to  give  protection  to  the  good,  yet  who  console  themselves  in 
the  storms  of  the  state  with  the  fond  hope,  that  order  will 
spring  out  of  confusion,  because  innovators  will  grow  weary  of 
change,  and  the  ambitious  will  contend  about  their  spoil.  Then 
we  are  to  have  anew  system  exactly  like  the  old  one,  from  the 
fortuitous  concourse  of  atoms,  from  the  crash  and  jumble  of 
all  that  is  precious  or  sacred  in  the  state.  It  is  said,  the  popu 
lar  hopes  and  fears  are  the  gales  that  impel  the  political  vessel. 
Can  any  disappointment  of  such  hopes  be  greater  than  their 
folly  ? 

IT  is  true,  the  men  now  in  power  may  not  be  united  together 
by  patriotism,  or  by  any  principle  of  faith  or  integrity.  It  is 
also  true,  that  they  have  not,  and  cannot  easily  have,  a  military 
force  to  awe  the  people  into  submission.  But  on  the  other 
hand,  they  have  no  need  of  an  army  ;  there  is  no  army  to 
oppose  them.  They  are  held  together  by  the  ties,  and  made 
irresistible  by  the  influence  of  party.  With  the  advantage  of 
acting  as  the  government,  who  can  oppose  them  ?  Not  the 
federalists,  who  neither  have  any  force,  nor  any  object  to 
employ  it  for,  if  they  had.  Not  any  subdivision  of  their  own 
faction,  because  the  opposers,  if  they  prevail,  will  become  the 
government,  so  much  the  less  liable  to  be  opposed  for  their 
recent  victory  ;  and  if  the  new  sect  should  fail,  they  will  be 
nothing.  The  conquerors  will  take  care,  that  an  unsuccessful 
resistance  shall  strengthen  their  domination. 

THUS  it  seems,  in  every  event  of  the  division  of  the  ruling 
party,  the  friends  of  true  liberty  have  nothing  to  hope.  Tyrants 
may  thus  be  often  changed,  but  the  tyranny  will  remain. 


AMERICAN  LIBERTY.  419 

A  DEMOCRACY  cannot  last.  Its  nature  ordains,  that  its  next 
change  shall  be  into  a  military  despotism,  of  all  known  govern 
ments,  perhaps,  the  most  prone  to  shift  its  head,  and  the  slowest 
to  mend  its  vices.  The  reason  is,  that  the  tyranny  of  what  is 
called  the  people,  and  that  by  the  sword,  both  operate  alike  to 
debase  and  corrupt,  till  there  are  neither  men  left  with  the 
spirit  to  desire  liberty,  nor  morals  with  the  power  to  sus 
tain  justice.  Like  the  burning  pestilence  that  destroys  the 
human  body,  nothing  can  subsist  by  its  dissolution  but  vermin. 

A  MILITARY  government  may  make  a  nation  great,  but  it 
cannot  make  them  free.  There  will  be  frequent  and  bloody 
struggles  to  decide  who  shall  hold  the  sword  ;  but  the  coir.uc- 
ror  will  destroy  his  competitors  and  prevent  any  permanent 
division  of  the  empire.  Experience  proves,  that  in  all  such 
governments  there  is  a  continual  tendency  to  unity. 

SOME  kind  of  balance  between  the  two  branches  of  the  Ro 
man  government  had  been  maintained  for  several  ages,  till  at 
length  every  popular  demagogue,  from  the  two  Gracchi  to 
Cesar,  tried  to  gain  favour,  and  by  favour  to  gain  power  by 
flattering  the  multitude  with  new  pretensions  to  power  in  the 
state.  The  assemblies  of  the  people  disposed  of  every  thing; 
and  intrigue  and  corruption,  and  often  force  disposed  of  the 
votes  of  those  assemblies.  It  appears,  that  Cutulus,  Cato, 
Cicero,  and  the  wisest  of  the  Roman  patriots,  and  perhaps 
wiser  never  lived,  kept  on,  like  the  infatuated  federalists,  hop 
ing  to  the  last,  that  the  people  would  see  their  errour  and 
return  to  the  safe  old  path.  They  laboured  incessantly  to  re 
establish  the  commonwealth  ;  but  the  deep  corruption  of  those 
times,  not  more  corrupt  than  our  own,  rendered  that  impos 
sible.  Many  of  the  friends  of  liberty  were  slain  in  the  civil 
wars  ;  some,  like  Lucullus,  had  retired  to  their  farms  ;  and 
most  of  the  others,  if  not  banished  by  the  people,  were  without 
commands  in  the  army,  and,  of  course,  without  power  in  the 
state.  Catiline  came  near  being  chosen  consul,  and  Piso  and 
Gabinius,  scarcely  less  corrupt,  were  chosen.  A  people  so 
degenerate  could  not  maintain  liberty ;  and  do  we  find  bad 
morals  or  dangerous  designs  any  obstruction  to  the  election  of 


420  THE  DANGERS  OF 

any  favourite  of  the  reigning  party  ?  It  is  remarkable?  that 
when  by  a  most  singular  concurrence  of  circumstances,  after 
the  death  of  Cesar,  an  opportunity  was  given  to  the  Romans  to 
re-establish  the  republick,  there  was  no  effective  disposition 
among  the  people  to  concur  in  that  design.  It  seemed  as  if 
the  republican  party,  consisting  of  the  same  class  of  men  as 
the  Washington  federalists,  had  expired  with  the  dictator. 
The  truth  is,  when  parties  rise  and  resort  to  violence,  the  mo 
ment  of  calm,  if  one  should  happen  to  succeed,  leaves  little  to 
wisdom  and  nothing  to  choice.  The  orations  of  Cicero  proved 
feeble  against  the  arms  of  Mark  Antony.  Is  not  all  this 
Apparent  in  the  United  States  ?  Are  not  the  federalists  as  des 
titute  of  hopes  as  of  power  ?  What  is  there  left  for  them  to 
do  ?  When  a  faction  has  seized  the  republick,  and  established 
itself  in  power,  can  the  true  federal  republicans  any  longer 
subsist  ?  After  having  seen  the  republick  expire,  will  it  be 
asked,  why  they  are  not  immortal  ? 

BUT  the  reason  why  such  governments  are  not  severed 
by  the  ambition  of  contending  chiefs,  deserves  further  consid 
eration. 

As  soon  as  the  Romans  had  subdued  the  kingdoms  of  Per 
seus,  Antiochus,  and  Mithridates,  it  was  necessary  to  keep  on 
foot  great  armies.  As  the  command  of  these  was  bestowed 
by  the  people,  the  arts  of  popularity  were  studied  by  all  those, 
who  pretended  to  be  the  friends  of  the  people,  and  who  really 
aspired  to  be  their  masters.  The  greatest  favourites  became 
the  most  powerful  generals  ;  and,  as  at  first  there  was  nothing 
which  the  Roman  assemblies  were  unwilling  to  give,  it  ap 
peared  very  soon  that  they  had  nothing  left  to  withhold.  The 
armies  disposed  of  all  power  in  the  state,  and  of  the  state 
itself;  and  the  generals  of  course  assumed  the  control  of  the 
armies. 

IT  is  a  very  natural  subject  of  surprise,  that,  when  the  Ro 
man  empire  was  rent  by  civil  war,  as  it  was,  perhaps,  twenty 
times  from  the  age  of  Marius  and  Sylla  to  that  of  Constantine, 
some  competitor  for  the  imperial  purple  did  not  maintain  him 
self  with  his  veteran  troops  in  his  province  ;  and  found  a  new 


AMERICAN  LIBERTY.  421 

dynasty  on  the  banks  of  the  Euphrates  or  the  Danube,  the 
Ebro  or  the  Rhine.  This  surprise  is  augmented  by  consider 
ing  the  distractions  and  weakness  of  an  elective  government,  as 
the  Roman  was  ;  the  wealth,  extent,  and  power  of  the  rebel 
lious  provinces,  equal  to  several  modern  first  rate  kingdoms  ; 
their  distance  from  Italy ;  and  the  resource  that  the  despair, 
and  shame,  and  rage  of  so  many  conquered  nations  would  sup 
ply  on  an  inviting  occasion  to  throw  off  their  chains  and  rise 
once  more  to  independence ;  yet  the  Roman  power  constantly 
prevailed,  and  the  empire  remained  one  and  indivisible.  Ser- 
torius  was  as  good  a  general  as  Pompey ;  and  it  seems  strange 
that  he  did  not  become  emperour  of  Spain.  Why  were  not 
new  empires  founded  in  Armenia,  Syria,  Asia  Minor,  in  Gaul 
or  Britain  ?  Why,  we  ask,  unless  because  the  very  nature  of 
a  military  democracy,  such  as  the  Roman  was,  did  not  permit 
it  ?  Every  civil  war  terminated  in  the  re-union  of  the  provinces, 
that  a  rebellion  had  for  a  time  severed  from  the  empire. 
Britain,  Spain,  and  Gaul,  now  so  potent,  patiently  continued  to 
wear  their  chains,  till  they  dropped  off  by  the  total  decay  of 
the  Western  empire. 

THE  first  conquests  of  the  Romans  were  made  by  the  su 
periority  of  their  discipline.  The  provinces  were  permitted 
to  enjoy  their  municipal  laws,  but  all  political  and  military 
power  was  exercised  by  persons  sent  from  Rome.  So  that 
the  spirit  of  the  subject  nations  was  broken  or  rendered  im 
potent,  and  every  contest  in  the  provinces  was  conducted,  not 
by  the  provincials,  but  by  Roman  generals  and  veteran  troops. 
These  were  all  animated  with  the  feelings  of  the  Roman  de 
mocracy.  Now  a  democracy,  a  party,  and  an  army  bear  a  close 
resemblance  to  each  other :  they  are  all  creatures  of  emotion 
and  impulse.  However  discordant  all  the  parts  of  a  democracy 
may  be,  they  all  seek  a  centre,  and  that  centre  is  the  single 
arbitrary  power  of  a  chief.  In  this  we  see  how  exactly  a  de 
mocracy  is  like  an  army :  they  are  equally  governments  by 
downright  force. 

A  MULTITUDE  can  be  moved  only  by  their  passions ;  and 
these,  when  their  gratification  is  obstructed,  instantly  impel 


422  THE  DANGERS  OF 

them  to  arms.  Furor  anna  ministrat.  The  club  is  first  used, 
and  then,  as  more  effectual,  the  sword.  The  disciplined  is 
found  by  the  leaders  to  be  more  manageable  than  the  mobbish 
force.  The  rabble  at  Paris  that  conquered  the  bastile  were 
soon  formed  into  national  guards.  But,  from  the  first  to  the 
last,  the  nature,  and  character,  and  instruments  of  power  re 
main  the  same.  A  rifie  democracy  will  not  long  want  sharp 
tools  and  able  leaders  :  in  fact,  though  not  in  name,  it  is  an 
army.  It  is  true,  an  army  is  not  constituted  as  a  deliberative 
body,  and  very  seldom  pretends  to  deliberate  ;  but,  whenever  it 
does,  it  is  a  democracy  in  regiments  and  brigades,  somewhat 
the  more  orderly  as  well  as  more  merciful  for  its  discipline. 
It  always  will  deliberate,  when  it  is  suffered  to  feel  its  own 
power,  and  is  indiscreetly  provoked  to  exert  it.  At  those  times, 
is  there  much  reason  to  believe  it  will  act  with  less  good  sense, 
or  with  a  more  determined  contempt  for  the  national  interest 
and  opinion,  than  a  giddy  multitude  managed  by  worthless 
leaders  ?  Now  though  an  army  is  not  indulged  with  a  vote,  it 
cannot  be  stripped  of  its  feelings,  feelings  that  may  be  managed, 
but  cannot  be  resisted.  When  the  legions  of  Syria  or  Gaul  pre 
tended  to  make  an  emperour,  it  was  as  little  in  the  power  as 
it  was  in  the  disposition  of  Severus  to  content  himself  with 
Italy,  and  to  leave  those  fine  provinces  to  Niger  and  Albinus. 
The  military  town  meeting  must  be  satisfied ;  and  nothing 
could  satisfy  it  but  the  overthrow  of  a  rival  army.  If  Pompey 
before  the  battle  of  Pharsalia  had  joined  his  lieutenants  in 
Spain,  with  the  design  of  abandoning  Italy,  and  erecting  Spain 
into  a  separate  republick,  or  monarchy,  every  Roman  citizen 
would  have  despised,  and  every  Roman  soldier  would  have  aban 
doned  him.  After  that  fatal  battle,  Cato  and  Scipio  never  once 
thought  of  keeping  Africa  as  an  independent  government ;  nor 
did  Brutus  and  Cassius  suppose,  that  Greece  and  Macedonia, 
which  they  held  with  an  army,  afforded  them  more  than  the 
means  of  contesting  with  Octavius  and  Antony  the  dominion 
of  Rome.  No  hatred  is  fiercer  than  such  as  springs  up  among 
those  who  are  closely  allied  and  nearly  resemble  each  other. 
Every  common  soldier  would  be  easily  made  to  feel  the  personal 


AMERICAN  LIBERTY.  423 

insult  and  the  intolerable  wrong  of  another  army's  rejecting 
his  emperour  and  setting  up  one  of  their  own — not  only  so, 
but  he  knew  it  was  both  a  threat  and  a  defiance.  The  shock 
of  the  two  armies  was  therefore  inevitable.  It  was  a  sort  of 
duel,  -and  could  no  more  stop  short  of  destruction,  than  the 
combat  of  Hector  and  Achilles.  We  greatly  mistake  the 
workings  of  human  nature,  when  we  suppose  the  soldiers  in 
such  civil  wars  are  mere  machines.  Hope  and  fear,  love  and 
hatred,  on  the  contrary,  exalt  their  feelings  to  enthusiasm. 
When  Otho's  troops  had  received  a  check  from  those  of  Vitel- 
lius,  he  resolved  to  kill  himself.  -  His  soldiers,  with  tears,  be 
sought  him  to  live,  and  swore  they  wou-Id  perish,  if  necessary, 
in  his  cause.  But  he  persisted  in  his  purpose,  and  killed  him 
self  ;  and  many  of  his  soldiers,  overpowered  by  their  grief,  fol 
lowed  his  example.  Those,  whom  false  philosophy  makes 
blind,  will  suppose,  that  national  wars  will  justify,  and,  there 
fore,  will  excite  all  a  soldier's  ardour ;  but  that  the  strife  be 
tween  two  ambitious  generals  will  be  regarded  by  all  men  with 
proper  indifference.  National  disputes  are  not  understood,  and 
their  consquences  not  foreseen,  by  the  multitude  ;  but  a  quarrel 
that  concerns  the  life,  and  fame,  and  authority  of  a  military 
favourite  takes  hold  of  the  heart,  and  stirs  up  all  the  passions. 

A  DEMOCRACY  is  so  like  an  army,  that  no  one  will  be  at  a 
loss  in  applying  these  observations.  The  great  spring  of  action 
with  the  people  in  a  democracy,  is  their  fondness  for  one  set 
of  men,  the  men  who  flatter  and  deceive,  and  their  outrageous 
aversion  to  another,  most  probably  those  who  prefer  their  true 
interest  to  their  favour. 

A  MOB  is  no  sooner  gathered  together,  than  it  instinctively 
feels  the  want  of  a  leader,  a  want  that  is  soon  supplied.  They 
may  not  obey  him  as  long,  but  they  obey  him  as  implicitly,  and 
will  as  readily  fight  and  burn,  or  rob  and  murder,  in  his  cause, 
as  the  soldiers  will  for  their  general. 

.  As  the  Roman  provinces  were  held  in  subjection  by  Roman 
troops,  so  every  American  state  is  watched  with  jealousy,  and 
ruled  with  despotick  rigour  by  the  partisans  of  the  faction 
that  may  happen  to  be  in  power.  The  successive  struggles, 


424  THE  DANGERS  OF 

to  which  our  licentiousness  may  devote  the  country,  will  never 
be  of  state  against  state,  but  of  rival  factions  diffused  over  our 
whole  territory.  Of  course,  the  strongest  army,  or  that  which 
is  best  commanded  will  prevail,  and  we  shall  remain  subject 
to  one  indivisible  bad  government. 

THIS  conclusion  may  seem  surprising  to  many  ;  but  the 
event  of  the  Roman  republick  will  vindicate  it  on  the  evidence 
of  history.  After  faction,  in  the  time  of  Marius,  utterly  oblite 
rated  every  republican  principle  that  was  worth  anything,  Rome 
remained  a  military  despotism  for  almost  six  hundred  years  ; 
and,  as  the  re-establishment  of  republican  liberty  in  our  coun 
try  after  it  is  once  lost,  is  a  thing  not  to  be  expected,  what 
can  succeed  its  loss  but  a  government  by  the  sword  ?  It  would 
be  certainly  easier  to  prevent  than  to  retrieve  its  fall. 

THE  jacobins  are  indeed  ignorant  or  wicked  enough  to  say, 
a  mixed  monarchy  on  the  model  of  the  British  will  succeed  the 
failure  of  our  republican  system.  Mr.  Jefferson  in  his  famous 
letter  to  Mazzei  has  shewn  the  strange  condition  both  of  his  head 
and  heart,  by  charging  this  design  upon  Washington  and  his 
adherents.  It  is  but  candid  to  admit,  that  there  are  many  weak- 
minded  democrats,  who  really  think  a  mixed  monarchy  the  next 
stage  of  our  politicks.  As  well  might  they  promise,  that, 
when  their  factious  fire  has  burned  the  plain  dwelling-house  of 
our  liberty,  her  temple  will  rise  in  royal  magnificence  and  with 
all  the  proportions  of  Grecian  architecture  from  the  ashes. 
It  is  impossible  sufficiently  to  elucidate,  yet  one  could  never 
be  tired  of  elucidating  the  matchless  absurdity  of  this  opinion. 
An  unmixed  monarchy,  indeed,  there  is  almost  no  doubt 
awaits  us  ;  but  it  will  not  be  called  a  monarchy.  Cesar  lost 
his  life  by  attempting  to  take  the  name  of  king.  A  president, 
whose  election  cannot  be  hindered,  may  be  well  content  to 
wear  that  title,  which  inspires  no  jealousy,  yet  disclaims  no 
prerogative  that  party  can  usurp  to  confer.  Old  forms  may 
be  continued,  till  some  inconvenience  is  felt  from  them ;  and 
then  the  same  faction  that  has  made  them  forms,  can  make 
them  less,  and  substitute  some  new  organick  decree  in  their 
stead. 


AMERICAN  LTBERTY.  425 

BUT  a  mixed  monarchy  would  not  only  offend  fixed  opin 
ions  and  habits,  but  provoke  a  most  desperate  resistance.  The 
people,  long  after  losing  the  substance  of  republican  liberty, 
maintain  a  reverence  for  the  name  ;  and  would  fight  with  en 
thusiasm  for  the  tyrant,  who  has  left  them  the  name,  and  taken 
from  them  every  thing  else.  Who,  then,  are  to  set  it  up  ?  and 
how  are  they  to  do  it  ?  Is  it  by  an  army  ?  Where  are  their  sol 
diers  ?  Where  are  their  resources  and  means  to  arm  and  main 
tain  them  ?  Can  it  be  established  by  free  popular  consent  ?  Ab 
surd.  A  people  once  trained  to  republican  principles,  will  feel 
the  degradation  of  submitting  to  a  king.  It  is  far  from  cer 
tain,  that  their  opposition  would  be  soothed,  by  restricting  the 
powers  of  such  a  king  to  the  one  half  of  what  are  now  enjoyed 
by  Mr.  Jefferson.  That  would  make  a  difference,  but  the  many 
would  not  discern  it.  The  aversion  of  a  republican  nation  to 
kingship  is  sincere  and  warm,  even  to  fanaticism  ;  yet  it  has 
never  been  found  to  exact  of  a  favourite  demagogue,  who 
aspired  to  reign,  any  other"  condescension  than  an  ostentatious 
scrupulousness  of  regard  to  names,  to  appearances,  and  forms. 
Augustus,  whose  despotism  was  not  greater  than  his  cunning, 
professed  to  be  the  obsequious  minister  of  his  slaves  in  the 
senate ;  and  Roman  pride  not  only  exacted,  but  enjoyed  to  the 
last,  the  pompous  hypocrisy  of  the  phrase,  the  majesty  of  the 
Roman  commonwealth. 

To  suppose,  therefore,  a  monarchy  established  by  vote  of 
die  people,  by  the  free  consent  of  a  majority,  is  contrary  to  the 
nature  of  man  and  the  uniform  testimony  of  his  experience. 
To  suppose  it  introduced  by  the  disciples  of  Washington,  who 
are  with  real  or  affected  scorn  described  by  their  adversaries 
as  a  fallen  party,  a  despicable  handful  of  malecontents,  is  no 
less  absurd  than  inconsistent.  The  federalists  cannot  com 
mand  the  consent  of  a  majority,  and  they  have  no  consular  or 
imperial  army  to  extort  it.  Every  thing  of  that  sort  is  on  the 
side  of  their  foes,  and,  of  course,  an  unsurmountable  obstacle 
to  their  pretended  enterprise. 

IT  will  weigh  nothing  in  the  argument  with  some  persons, 
but  with  men  of  sense  it  will  be  conclusive,  that  the  mass  of 
54 


426  THE  DANGERS  OF 

the  federalists  are  the  owners. of  the  commercial  and  monied 
wealth  of  the  nation.  Is  it  conceivable,  that  such  men  will 
plot  a  revolution  in  favour  of  monarchy,  a  revolution  that 
would  make  them  beggars  as  well  as  traitors,  if  it  should  mis 
carry  ;  and,  if  it  should  succeed  ever  so  well,  would  require  a 
century  to  take  root  and  acquire  stability  enough  to  ensure 
justice  and  protect  property  ?  In  these  convulsions  of  the  state 
property  is  shaken,  and  in  almost  every  radical  change  of  gov 
ernment  actually  shifts  hands.  Such  a  project  would  seem 
audacious  to  the  conception  of  needy  adventurers  who  risk  no 
thing  but  their  lives  ;  but  to  reproach  the  federalists  of  New- 
England,  the  most  independent  farmers,  opulent  merchants, 
and  thriving  mechanicks,  as  well  as  pious  clergy,  with  such  a 
conspiracy,  requires  a  degree  of  impudence  that  nothing  can 
transcend.  As  well  might  they  suspect  the  merchants  of  a 
plot  to  choak  up  the  entrance  of  our  harbours  by  sinking  hulks, 
or  that  the  directors  of  the  several  bunks  had  confederated  to 
blow  up  the  money  vaults  with  gunpowder.  The  Catos  and 
the  Ciceros  are  accused  of  conspiring  to  subvert  the  common 
wealth — and  who  are  the  accusers  ?  The  Clo$i,  the  Antonies, 
and  the  Catilines. 

4 

LET  us  imagine,  however,  that  by  some  miracle  a  mixed 
monarchy  is  established,  or  rather  put  into  operation ;  and 
surely  no  man  will  suppose  an  unmixed  monarchy  can  possibly 
be  desired  or  contemplated  by  the  federalists.  The  charge 
against  them  is,  that  they  like  the  British  monarchy  too  well. 
For  the  sake  of  argument,  then,  be  it  the  British  monarchy. 
To-morrow's  sun  shall  rise  and  gild  it  with  hope  and  joy,  and 
the  dew  of  to-morrow's  evening  shall  moisten  its  ashes.  Like 
the  golden  calf,  it  would  be  ground  to  powder  before  noon. 
Certainly,  the  men,  who  prate  about  an  American  monarchy 
copied  from  the  British,  are  destitute  of  all  sincerity  or  judg 
ment.  What  could  make  such  a  monarchy  ?  Not  parchment— 
We  are  beginning  to  be  cured  of  the  insane  belief,  that  an  en 
grossing  clerk  can  make  a  constitution.  Mere  words,  though 
on  parchment,  though  sworn  to,  are  wind,  and  worse  than 
wind,  because  they  are  perjury.  What  could  give  eifect  to 


AMERICAN  LIBERTY'.  427 

such  a  monarchy  ?  It  might  have  a  right  to  command,  but 
what  could  give  it  power  ?  Not  an  army,  for  that  would  make 
it  a  military  tyranny,  of  all  governments  the  most  odious,  be 
cause  the  most  durable.  The  British  monarchy  does  not 
govern  by  an  army,  nor  would  their  army  suffer  itself  to  be 
employed  to  destroy  the  national  liberties.  It  is  officered  by 
the  younger  sons  of  noble  and  wealthy  parents,  and  by  many 
distinguished  commanders  who  are  in  avowed  opposition  to  the 
ministry.  In  fact,  democratic!;,  opinions  take  root  and  flourish 
scarcely  less  in  armies  than  in  great  cities,  and  infinitely  more 
than  they  are  found  to  do,  or  than  it  is  possible  they  should  in 
the  cabals  of  any  ruling  party  in  the  world. 

GREAT  BRITAIN,  by  being  an  island,  is  secured  from  foreign 
conquest  ;•  and  by  having  a  powerful  enemy  within  sight  of  her 
shore  is  kept  in  sufficient  dread  of  it  to  be  inspired  with  patrio 
tism.  That  virtue,  with  all  the  fervour  and  elevation  that  a 
society  which  mixes  so  much  of  the  commercial  with  the  mar 
tial  spirit  can  display,  has  other  kindred  virtues  in  its  train ; 
and  these  have  had  an  influence  in  forming  the  habits  and  prin 
ciples  of  action,  not  only  of  the  English  military  and  nobles, 
but  of  the  mass  of  the  nation.  There  is  much,  therefore,  there 
is  every  thing  in  that  island  to  blend  self-love  with  love  of  coun 
try.  It  is  impossible,  that  an  Englishman  should  have  fears 
for  the  government  without  trembling  for  his  own  safety.  How 
different  are  these  sentiments  from  the  immovable  apathy  of 
those  citizens,  who  think  a  constitution  no  better  than  any  other 
piece  of  paper,  nor  so  good  as  a  blank  on  which  a  more  per 
fect  one  could  be  written  1 

Is  our  monarchy  to  be  supported  by  the  national  habits  of 
subordination  and  implicit  obedience  ?  Surely,  when  they  hold 
out  this  expectation,  the  jacobins  do  not  mean  to  answer  for 
themselves.  Or  do  we  really  think  it  would  still  be  a  monarchy, 
though  we  should  set  up,  and  put  down  at  pleasure,  a  town  meet 
ing  king  ? 

BY  removing  or  changing  the  relation  of  any  one  of  the 
pillars  that  support  the  British  government,  its  identity  and 
excellence  would  be  lost,  a  revolution  would  ensue.  When  the 


428  THE  DANGERS  OF 

house  of  commons  voted  the  house  of  peers  useless,  a  tyranny* 
of  the  committees  of  that  body  sprang  up.  The  English  na 
tion  have  had  the  good  sense,  or,  more  correctly,  the  good 
fortune,  to  alter  nothing,  till  time  and  circumstances  enforced 
the  alteration,  and  then  to  abstain  from  speculative  innovations. 
The  evil  spirit  of  metaphy sicks  has  not  been  conjured  up  to 
demolish,  in  order  to  lay  out  a  new  foundation  by  the  line,  and 
to  build  upon  plan.  The  present  happiness  of  that  nation 
rests  upon  old  foundations,  so  much  the  more  solid,  because 
the  meddlesome  ignorance  of  professed  builders  has  not  been 
allowed  to  new  lay  them.  We  may  be  permitted  to  call  it  a 
matter  of  fact  government.  No  correct  politician  will  presume 
to  engage,  that  the  same  form  of  government  would  succeed 
equally  well,  or  even  succeed  at  all,  any  where  else,  or  even 
in  England  under  any  other  circumstances.  Who  will  dare  to 
say,  that  their  monarchy  would  stand,  if  this  generation  had 
raised  it  ?  Who,  indeed,,  will  believe,  if  it  did  stand,  that  the 
weakness  produced  by  the  novelty  of  its  institution  would  not 
justify  and,  even  from  a  regard  to  self  preservation,  compel  an 
almost  total  departure  from  its  essential  principles  ? 

Now  is  there  one  of  those  essential  principles,  that  it  is  even 
possible  for  the  American  people  to  adopt  for  their  monarchy  ? 
Are  old  habits  to  be  changed  by  a  vote,  and  new  ones  to  be 
established  without  experience  ?  Can  we  have  a  monarchy 
without  a  peerage  ?  or  shall  our  governours  supply  that  defect 
by  giving  commissions  to  a  sufficient  number  of  nobles  of  the 
quorum  ?  Where  is  the  American  hierarchy  ?  WThere,  above 
all,  is  the  system  of  English  law  and  justice,  which  would  sup 
port  liberty  in  Turkey,  if  Turkey  could  achieve  the  impossi 
bility  of  supporting  such  justice  ? 

IT  is  not  recollected,  that  any  monarchy  in  the  world  was 
ever  introduced  by  consent ;  nor  will  any  one  believe,  on  reflec 
tion,  that  it  could  be  maintained  by  any  nation,  if  nothing  but 
consent  upheld  it.  It  is  a  rare  thing,  for  a  people  to  choose 
their  government ;  it  is  beyond  all  credibility,  that  they  will 
enjoy  the  still  rarer  opportunity  of  changing  it  by  choice. 


AMERICAN  LIBERTY.  429 

THE  notion,  therefore,  of  an  American  mixed  monarchy  is 
supremely  ridiculous.  It  is  highly  probable,  our  country  will 
be  eventually  subject  to  a  monarchy,  but  it  is  demonstrable 
that  it  cannot  be  such  as  the  British  ;  and,  whatever  it  may  be, 
that  the  votes  of  the  citizens  will  not  be  taken  to  introduce  it. 

IT  cannot  be  expected,  that  the  tendency  towards  a  change 
of  government,  however  obvious,  will  be  discerned  by  the  mul 
titude  of  our  citizens.  While  demagogues  enjoy  their  favour, 
their  passions  will  have  no  rest,  and  their  judgment  and  under 
standing  no  exercise.  Otherwise,  it  might  be  of  use  to  remind 
them,  that  more  essential  breaches  have  been  made  in  our 
constitution  within  four  years  than  in  the  British  in  the  last 
hundred  and  forty.  In  that  enslaved  country,  every  executive 
attempt  at  usurpation  has  been  spiritedly  and  perseveringly 
resisted,  and  substantial  improvements  have  been  made  in  the 
constitutional  provisions  for  liberty.  Witness  the  habeas  cor 
pus,  the  independence  of  the  judges,  and  the  perfection,  if  any 
thing  human  is  perfect,  of  their  administration  of  justice,  the 
result  of  the  famous  Middlesex  election,  and  that  on  the  right 
of  issuing  general  search-warrants.  Let  every  citizen  who  is 
able  to  think,  and  who  can  bear  the  pain  of  thinking,  make  the 
contrast  at  his  leisure. 

THEY  are  certainly  blind  who  do  not  see,  that  we  are  de 
scending  from  a  supposed  orderly  and  stable  republican  govern 
ment  into  a  licentious  democracy,  with  a  progress  that  baffles 
all  means  to  resist,  and  scarcely  leaves  leisure  to  deplore  its 
celerity.  The  institutions  and  the  hopes  that  Washington 
raised  are  nearly  prostrate  ;  and  his  name  and  memory  would 
perish,  if  the  rage  of  his  enemies  had  any  power  over  history. 
But  they  have  not — history  will  give  scope  to  her  vengeance, 
and  posterity  will  not  be  defrauded. 

BUT,  if  our  experience  had  not  clearly  given  warning  of  our 
approaching  catastrophe,  the  very  nature  of  democracy  would 
inevitably  produce  it. 

A  GOVERNMENT  by  the  passions  of  the  multitude,  or,  no 
less  correctly,  according  to  the  vices  and  ambition  of  their 
leaders,  is  a  democracy.  We  have  heard  so  long  of  the  inde- 


430  THE  DANGERS  OF 

feasible  sovereignty  of  the  people,  and  have  admitted  so  many 
specious  theories  of  the  rights  of  man,  which  are  contradicted 
by  his  nature  and  experience,  that  few  will  dread  at  all,  and 
fewer  still  will  dread  as  they  ought,  the  evils  of  an  American 
democracy.  They  will  not  believe  them  near,  or  they  will  think 
them  tolerable  or  temporary.  Fatal  delusion  ! 

WHEN  it  is  said,  there  may  be  a  tyranny  of  the  many  as  well 
as  of  the  fe w,  every  democrat  will  yield  at  least  a  cold  and  spe 
culative  assent ;  but  he  will  at  all  times  act,  as  if  it  were  a  thing 
incomprehensible,  that  there  should  be  any  evil  to  "be  appre 
hended  in  the  uncontrolled  power  of  the  people.  He  will  say, 
arbitrary  power  may  make  a  tyrant,  but  how  can  it  make  its 
possessor  a  slave  ? 

IN  the  first  place,  let  it  be  remarked,  the  power  of  individuals 
is  a  very  different  thing  from  their  liberty.     When  I  vote  for 
the  man  I  prefer,  he  may  happen  not  to  be  chosen  ;  or  he  may 
disappoint  my  expectations,  if  he  is  ;  or  he  may  be  out-voted  by 
others  in  the  pubiick  body  to  which  he  is  elected.   I  may,  then, 
hold  and  exercise  all  the  power  that  a  citizen  can  have  or  enjoy, 
and  yet  such  laws  may  be  made  and  such  abuses  allowed  as  shall 
deprive  me  of  all  liberty.     I  may  be  tried  by  a  jury,  and  that 
jury  may  be  culled  and  picked  out  from  my  political  enemies 
by  a  federal  marshal.      Of  course,  my  life  and   liberty  may 
depend  on  the  good  pleasure  of  the  man  who  appoints  that 
marshal.     I  may  be   assessed  arbitrarily  for  my  faculty,  or 
upon  conjectural  estimation  of  my  property,  so  that  all  I  have 
shall  be  at  the  control  of  the  government,  whenever  its  displea 
sure  shall  exact  the  sacrifice.  I  may  be  told,  that  I  am  a  fede 
ralist,  and,  as  such,  bound  to  submit,  in  all  cases  whatsoever, 
to  the  will  of  the  majority,  as  the  ruling  faction  ever  pretend 
to  be.   My  submission  may  be  tested  by  my  resisting  or  obey 
ing  commands  that  will  involve  me  in  disgrace,  or  drive  me 
to  despair.      I  may  become  a  fugitive,   because   the  ruling- 
party  have  made  me  afraid  to  stay  at  home  ;  or,  perhaps,  while 
I  remain  at  home,  they  may,  nevertheless,  think  fit  to  inscribe 
my  name  on  the  list  of  emigrants  and  proscribed  persons. 


AMERICAN  LIBERTY.  431 

ALL  this  was  done  in  France,  and  many  of  the  admirers  of 
French  examples  are  impatient  to  imitate  them.  All  this 
time  the  people  may  be  told,  they  are  the  freest  in  the  world ; 
but  what  ought  my  opinion  to  be  ?  What  would  the  threatened 
clergy,  the  aristocracy  of  wealthy  merchants,  as  they  have 
been  called  already,  and  thirty  thousand  more  in  Massachu 
setts,  who  vote  for  governour  Strong,  and  whose  case  might 
be  no  better  than  mine,  what  would  they  think  of  their  condi 
tion  ?  Would  they  call  it  liberty  ?  Surely,  here  is  oppression 
sufficient  in  extent  and  degree  to  make  the  government  that 
inflicts  it  both  odious  and  terrible ;  yet  this  and  a  thousand 
times  more  than  this  was  practised  in  France,  and  will  be 
repeated,  as  often  as  it  shall  please  God  in  his  wrath  to  de 
liver  a  people  to  the  dominion  of  their  licentious  passions. 

THE  people,  as  a  body,  cannot  deliberate.  Nevertheless, 
they  will  feel  an  irresistible  impulse  to  act,  and  their  resolu 
tions  will  be  dictated  to  them  by  their  demagogues.  The  con 
sciousness,  or  the  opinion,  that  they  possess  the  supreme  pow 
er,  will  inspire  inordinate  passions  ;  and  the  violent  men,  who 
are  the  most  forward  to  gratify  those  passions,  will  be  their 
favourites.  What  is  called  tlie  government  of  the  people  is 
in  fact  too  often  the  arbitrary  power  of  such  men.  Here, 
then,  we  have  the  faithful  portrait  of  democracy.  What  avails 
the  boasted  fioiver  of  individual  citizens  ?  or  of  what  value  is 
the  will  of  the  majority,  if  that  will  is  dictated  by  a  committee 
of  demagogues,  and  law  and  right  are  in  fact  at  the  mercy  of 
a  victorious  faction  ?  To  make  a  nation  free,  the  crafty  must 
be  kept  in  awe,  and  the  violent  in  restraint.  The  weak  and 
the  simple  find  their  liberty  arise  not  from  their  own  indi 
vidual  sovereignty,  but  from  the  power  of  law  and  justice 
over  all.  It  is  only  by  the  due  restraint  of  others,  that  I  am 
free. 

POPULAR  sovereignty  is  scarcely  less  beneficent  than  awful, 
when  it  resides  in  their  courts  of  justice  ;  there  its  office,  like 
a  sort  of  human  providence,  is  to  warn,  enlighten,  and  protect ; 
when  the  people  are  inflamed  to  seize  and  exercise  it  in  their 
assemblies,  it  is  competent  only  to  kill  and  destroy.  Tern- 


432  THE  DANGERS  OF 

perate  liberty  is  like  tlje  dew,  as  it  falls  unseen  from  its  own 
heaven ;  constant  without  excess,  it  finds  vegetation  thirsting 
for  its  refreshment,  and  imparts  to  it  the  vigour  to  take  more. 
All  nature,  moistened  with  blessings,  sparkles  in  the  morning 
ray.  But  democracy  is  a  water  spout,  that  bursts  from  the 
clouds,  and  lays  the  ravaged  earth  bare  to  its  rocky  foundations. 
The  labours  of  man  lie  whelmed  with  his  hopes  beneath 
masses  of  ruin,  that  bury  not  only  the  dead,  but  their  monu 
ments.1 

IT  is  the  almost  universal  mistake  of  our  countrymen,  that 
democracy  would  be  mild  and  safe  in  America.  They  charge 
the  horrid  excesses  of  France  not  so  much  to  human  nature, 
which  will  never  act  better,  when  the  restraints  of  government, 
morals,  and  religion  are  thrown  off,  but  to  the  characteristick 
cruelty  and  wickedness  of  Frenchmen. 

THE  truth  is,  and  let  it  humble  our  pride,  the  most  ferocious 
of  all  animals,  when  his  passions  are  roused  to  fury  and  are 
uncontrolled,  is  man  ;  and  of  all  governments,  the  worst  is  that 
which- never  fails  to  excite,  but  was  never  found  to  restrain 
those  passions,  that  is,  democracy.  It  is  an  illuminated  hell, 
that  in  the  midst  of  remorse,  horrour,  and  torture,  rings  with 
festivity  ;  for  experience  shews,  that  one  joy  remains  to  this 
most  malignant  description  of  the  damned,  the  power  to  make 
others  wretched.  When  a  man  looks  round  and  sees  his 
neighbours  mild  and  merciful,  he  cannot  feel  afraid  of  the 
abuse  of  their  power  over  him :  and  surely  if  they  oppress  me, 
he  will  say,  they  will  spare  their  own  liberty,  for  that  is  dear 
to  all  mankind.  It  is  so.  The  human  heart  is  so  constituted, 
that  a  man  loves  liberty  as  naturally  as  himself.  Yet  liberty  is 
a  rare  thing  in  the  world,  though  the  love  of  it  is  so  universal, 

BEFORE  the  French  revolution,  it  was  the  prevailing  opinion 
of  our  countrymen,  that  other  nations  were  not  free,  because 
their  despotick  governments  were  too  strong  for  the  people. 
Of  course,  we  were  admonished  to  detest  all  existing  govern 
ments,  as  so  many  lions  in  liberty's  path ;  and  to  expect 
by  their  downfal  the  happy  opportunity  that  every  emanci 
pated  people  would  embrace  to  secure  their  own  equal  rights 


AMERICAN  LIBERTY.  433 

for  ever.  France  is  supposed  to  have  had  this  opportunity, 
and  to  have  lost  it.  Ought  we  not,  then,  to  be  convinced, 
that  something  more  is  necessary  to  preserve  liberty  than  to 
love  it  ?  Ought  we  not  to  see,  that,  when  the  people  have 
destroyed  all  power  but  their  own,  they  are  the  nearest  possible 
to  a  despotism,  the  more  uncontrolled  for  being  new,  and  ten 
fold  the  more  cruel  for  its  hypocrisy  ? 

THE  steps  by  which  a  people  must  proceed  to  change  a 
government,  are  not  those  to  enlighten  their  judgment  or  to 
sooth  their  passions.  They  cannot  stir  without  following  the 
men  before  them,  who  breathe  fury  into  their  hearts  and  banish 
nature  from  them.  On  whatever  grounds  and  under  what 
ever  leaders  the  contest  may  be  commenced,  the  revolutionary 
work  is  the  same,  and  the  characters  of  the  agents  will  be 
assimilated  to  it.  A  revolution  is  a  mine  that  must  explode 
with  destructive  violence.  The  men  who  were  once  peace 
able  like  to  carry  firebrands  and  daggers  too  long.  Thus  armed, 
will  they  submit  to  salutary  restraint?  How  will  you  bring 
them  to  it?  Will  you  undertake  to  reason  down  fury?  Will 
you  satisfy  revenge  without  blood  ?  Will  you  preach  banditti 
into  habits  of  self-denial?  If  you  can,  and  in  times  of  violence 
and  anarchy,  why  do  you  ask  any  other  guard  than  sober  reason 
for  your  life  and  property  in  times  of  peace  and  order,  when, 
men  are  most  disposed  to  listen  to  it  ?  Yet  even  at  such  times, 
you  impose  restraints  ;  you  call  out  for  your  defence  the  whoio 
array  of  law  with  its  instruments  of  punishment  and  terrour; 
you  maintain  ministers  to  strengthen  force  with  opinion,  and 
to  make  religion  the  auxiliary  of  morals.  With  all  this,  how 
ever,  crimes  are  still  perpetrated  ;  society  is  not  any  too  safe 
or  quiet.  Break  down  all  these  fences ;  make  what  is  called 
law  an  assassin  ;  take  what  it  ought  to  protect,  and  divide  it ; 
extinguish  by  acts  of  rapine  and  vengeance  the  spark  of  mercy 
in  the  heart ;  or,  if  it  should  be  found  to  glow  there,  quench  it 
in  that  heart's  blood ;  make  your  people  scoff  at  their  morals, 
and  unlearn  an  education  to  virtue  ;  displace  the  Christian  sab 
bath  by  a  profane  one,  for  a  respite  once  in  ten  clays  from  the 
toils  of  murder,  because  men,  who  first  shed  blood  for  revenge, 
55 


434  THE  DANCERS  OF 

mid  proceed  to  spill  it  for  plunder,  and  in  the  progress  of  their 
ferocity,  for  sport,  want  a  festival — what  sort  of  society  would 
you  have  ?  Would  not  rage  grow  with  its  indulgence  ?  The 
coward  fury  of  a  mob  rises  in  proportion  as  there  is  less  re 
sistance  ;  and  their  inextinguishable  thirst  for  slaughter  grows 
more  ardent  as  more  blood  is  shed  to  slake  it.  In  such  a  state 
is  liberty  to  be  gained  or  guarded  from  violation  ?  It  could  not 
be  kept  an  hour  from  the  daggers  of  those  who,  having  seized 
dcspotick  power,  would  claim  it  as  their  lawful  prize. — •!  have 
written  the  history  of  France.  Can  we  look  back  upon  it  with 
out  terrour,  or  forward  without  despair  ? 

THE  nature  of  arbitrary  power  is  always  odious  ;  but  it  can 
not  be  long  the  arbitrary  power  of  the  multitude.  There  is, 
probably,  no  form  of  rule  among  mankind,  in  which  the  pro 
gress  of  the  government  depends  so  little  on  the  particular 
character  of  those  who  administer  it.  Democracy  is  the  crea 
ture  of  impulse  and  violence  ;  and  the  intermediate  stages 
towards  the  tyranny  of  one  are  so  quickly  passed,  that  the  vile- 
ness  and  cruelty  of  men  are  displayed  with  surprising  unifor 
mity.  There  is  not  time  for  great  talents  to  act.  There  is 
no  sufficient  reason  to  believe,  that  we  should  conduct  a  re 
volution  with  much  more  mildness  than  the  French.  If  a 
revolution  find  the  citizens  lambs,  it  will  soon  make  them 
carnivorous,  if  not  cannibals.  We  have  many  thousands  of  the 
Paris  and  St.  Domingo  assassins  in  the  United  States,  not  as 
fugitives,  but  as  patriots,  who  merit  reward,  and  disdain  to 
take  any  but  power.  In  the  progress  of  our  confusion,  these 
men  will  effectually  assert  their  claims  and  display  their  skill. 
There  is  no  governing  power  in  the  state  but  party.  The 
moderate  and  thinking  part  of  the  citizens  are  without  power 
or  influence  ;  and  it  must  be  so,  because  all  power  and  influ 
ence  are  engrossed  by  a  factious  combination  of  men,  who 
can  overwhelm  uncombined  individuals  with  numbers,  and  the 
wise  and  virtuous  with  clamour  and  fury. 

IT  is  indeed  a  law  of  politicks  as  well  as  of  physicks,  that  a 
body  in  action  must  overcome  an  equal  body  at  rest.  The 
attacks  that  have  been  made  on  the  constitutional  barriers  pro- 


AMERICAN  LIBERTY.  435 

claim  in  a  tone  that  would  not  be  louder  from  a  trumpet,  that 
party  will  not  tolerate  any  resistance  to  its  will.  All  the  sup 
posed  independent  orders  of  the  commonwealth  must  be  its 
servile  instruments,  or  its  victims.  We  should  experience  the 
same  despotism  in  Massachusetts,  New-Hampshire,  and  Con 
necticut,  but  the  battle  is  not  yet  won.  It  will  be  won  ;  and 
they  who  already  display  the  temper  of  their  Southern  and 
French  allies,  will  not  linger  or  reluct  in  imitating  the  worst 
extremes  of  their  example. 

WHAT,  then,  is  to  be  our  condition  ? 

FACTION  will  inevitably  triumph.  Where  the  government 
is  both  stable  and  free,  there  may  be  parties.  There  will  be 
differences  of  opinion,  and  the  pride  of  opinion  will  be  suffi 
cient  to  generate  contests,  and  to  inflame  them  with  bitterness 
and  rancour.  There  will  be  rivalships  among  those  whom 
genius,  fame,  or  station  have  made  great,  and  these  will  deep 
ly  agitate  the  state  without  often  hazarding  its  safety.  Such 
parties  will  excite  alarm,  but  they  may  be  safely  left,  like 
the  elements,  to  exhaust  their  fury  upon  each  other. 

THE  object  of  their  strife  is  to  get  power  under  the  govern 
ment  ;  for,  where  that  is  constituted  as  it  should  be,  the  power 
over  the  government  will  not  seem  attainable,  and,  of  course, 
will  not  be  attempted. 

BUT  in  democratick  states  there  will  befactio?ifi.  The  sove 
reign  power  being  nominally  in  the  hands  of  all,  will  be  effec 
tively  within  the  grasp  of  a  FEW  ;  and,  therefore,  by  the  very 
laws  of  our  nature,  a  few  will  combine,  intrigue,  lie,  and  fight 
to  engross  it  to  themselves.  All  history  bears  testimony,  that 
this  attempt  has  never  yet  been  disappointed. 

WHO  will  be  the  associates  ?  Certainly  not  the  virtuous,  who 
do  not  wish  to  control  the  society,  but  quietly  to  enjoy  its  pro 
tection.  The  enterprising  merchant,  the  thriving  tradesman, 
the  careful  farmer  will  be  engrossed  by  the  toils  of  their  busi 
ness,  and  will  have  little  time  or  inclination  for  the  unprofit 
able  and  disquieting  pursuits  of  politicks.  It  is  not  the  indus 
trious,  sober  husbandman,  who  will  plough  that  barren  field ; 
it  is  the  lazy  and  dissolute  bankrupt,  who  has  no  other  to 


436  THE  DANGERS  OP 

plough.  The  idle,  the  ambitious,  and  the  needy  will  band 
together  to  break  the  hold  that  law  has  upon  them,  and  then 
to  get  hold  of  law.  Faction  is  a  Hercules,  whose  first  labour 
is  to  strangle  this  lion,  and  then  to  make  armour  of  his  skin.  In 
every  clemocratick  state  the  ruling  faction  will  have  law  to  keep 
down  its  enemies  ;  but  it  will  arrogate  to  itself  an  undisputed 
power  over  law.  If  our  ruling  faction  has  found  any  impedi 
ments,  we  ask,  which  of  them  is  now  remaining  ?  And  is  it  not 
absurd  to  suppose,  that  the  conquerors  will  be  contented  with 
half  the  fruits  of  victory  ? 

WE  are  to  be  subject,  then,  to  a  desfiotick  faction,  irritated 
by  the  resistance  that  has  delayed,  and  the  scorn  that  pursues 
their  triumph,  elate  with  the  insolence  of  an  arbitrary  and  un 
controllable  domination,  and  who  will  exercise  their  sway,  not 
according  to  the  rules  of  integrity  or  national  policy,  but  in 
conformity  with  their  own  exclusive  interests  and  passions. 

THIS  is  a  state  of  things,  which  admits  of  progress,  but  not 
of  reformation  :  it  is  the  beginning  of  a  revolution,  which  must 
advance.  Our  affairs,  as  first  observed,  no  longer  depend  on 
counsel.  The  opinion  of  a  majority  is  no  longer  invited  or 
permitted  to  control  our  destinies,  or  even  to  retard  their  con 
summation.  The  men  in  power  may,  and,  no  doubt,  will  give 
place  to  some  other  faction,  who  will  succeed,  because  they 
are  abler  men,  or,  possibly,  in  candour  we  say  it,  because  they 
are  worse.  Intrigue  will  for  some  time  answer  instead  of 
force,  or  the  mob  will  supply  it.  But  by  degrees  force  only 
will  be  relied  on  by  those  who  are  in,  and  employed  by  those 
who  are  out.  The  vis  major  will  prevail,  and  some  bold 
chieftain  will  conquer  liberty,  and  triumph  and  reign  in  her 
name. 

YET,  it  is  confessed  we  have  hopes,  that  this  event  is  not 
very  near.  We  have  no  cities  as  large  as  London  or  Paris ; 
und,  of  course,  the  ambitious  demagogues  may  find  the  ranks 
of  their  STANDING  ARMY  too  thin  to  rule  by  them  alone.  It 
is  also  worth  remark,  that  our  mobs  are  not,  like  those  of 
Europe,  excitable  by  the  cry  of  no  bread.  The  dread  of  fam 
ine  is  every  where  else  a  power  of  political  electricity,  that 


AMERICAN  LIBERTY.  437 

glides  through  all  the  haunts  of  filth,  and  vice,  and  want  in  a 
city  with  incredible  speed,  and  in  times  of  insurrection  rives 
and  scorches  with  a  sudden  force,  like  heaven's  own  thunder. 
Accordingly,  we  find  the  sober  men  of  Europe  more  afraid  of 
the  despotism  of  the  rabble  than  of  the  government. 

BUT,  as  in  the  United  States  we  see  less  of  this  description 
of  low  vulgar,  and  as,  in  the  essential  circumstance  alluded 
to,  they  are  so  much  less  manageable  by  their  demagogues, 
we  are  to  expect,  that  our  affairs  will  be  long  guided  by  court 
ing  the  mob,  before  they  are  violently  changed  by  employing 
them.  While  the  passions  of  the  multitude  can  be  conciliated 
to  confer  power  and  to  overcome  all  impediments  to  its  action, 
our  rulers  have  a  plain  and  easy  task  to  perform.  It  costs 
them  nothing  but  hypocrisy.  As  soon,  however,  as  rival  fa 
vourites  of  the  people  may  happen  to  contend  by  the  practice 
of  the  same  arts,  we  are  to  look  for  the  sanguinary  strife  of 
ambition.  Brissot  will  fall  by  the  hand  of  Danton,  and  he  will 
be  supplanted  by  Robespiere.  The  revolution  will  proceed 
in  exactly  the  same  way,  but  not  with  so  rapid  a  pace,  as  that 
of  France. 


[    438    ] 


HINTS  AND  CONJECTURES 

CONCERNING 

THE  INSTITUTIONS  OF  LYCURGUS. 

WRITTEN  IN  1805. 

JL  H  E  institutions  of  Lycurgus  have  engrossed,  and,  perhaps, 
have  deserved  the  praises  of  all  antiquity.  Even  the  Athenians, 
the  rivals  and  enemies  of  Sparta,  do  not  withhold  or  stint  their 
admiration  of  .the  sublime  genius  and  profound  wisdom  of  this 
legislator.  Such  a  general  concurrence  of  opinions,  and  for 
so  many  ages,  in  favour  of  the  laws  of  Lycurgus,  can  scarcely 
be  imagined  to  proceed  from  errour,  accident,  or  caprice. 

WHEN  to  this  we  add,  that  for  seven  hundred  years  the 
Lacedaemonian  state  continued  to  respect,  if  not  rigidly  to  ob 
serve,  these  laws,  we  are  not  permitted  at  this  late  day  to 
arraign  their  wisdom,  especially  by  attempting  to  ridicule  their 
singularity.  We  are  the  less  authorized  to  pronounce  their 
condemnation,  as  the  ancients  have  taken  more  pains  to  make 
them  appear  admirable  than  intelligible.  A  complete  and  sa 
tisfactory  view  of  the  Spartan  policy,  if  any  such  were  exhibited 
of  old,  has  not  reached  our  times.  Besides,  so  unlike  are  our 
manners  and  institutions  to  those  of  Greece,  and  particularly 
of  Sparta,  that  the  representations  of  Xenophon,  Aristotle, 
Polybius,  and  Plutarch,  though  amply  sufficient  for  the  infor 
mation  of  their  countrymen,  cannot  fail  to  appear  defective  and 
obscure  to  us. 

THE  chief  articles  of  the  system  of  Lycurgus  seem  so  much 
more  extraordinary  than  any  thing  else  that  has  happened  in 
the  world,  except  their  political  consequences,  that  we  should 
be  induced  to  deny  the  facts,  if  the  historical  evidence  of  them 
were  not  complete.  As  we  are  not  permitted  to  do  this,  we  sub 
mit  to  the  authority  of  history,  with  a  sort  of  vague  and  unin- 
structed  astonishment  at  the  strangeness  of  its  testimony. 


THE  INSTITUTIONS  OF  LYCURGUS.  439 

SPARTA  or  Laceclaemon,  ancient  writers  tell  us,  was  rent 
with  factions,  one  of  the  two  kings  being  at  the  head  of  each, 
without  laws,  and  so  deeply  corrupted,  that  neither  morals  nor 
manners  could  supply  their  place.  In  this  exigency  Lycurgus 
appeared,  and  by  his  genius  took  the  ascendant  over  the  kings 
and  demagogues,  and,  indeed,  over  all  the  men  of  his  age  and 
nation,  as  the  pasture  oak  towers  above  the  shrubs,  or  like  a 
giant  among  dwarfs.  The  oracle  of  Delphi  gave  him,  more 
over,  all  the  authority  that  superstition  can  maintain  over  igno 
rance.  Thus  far  all  is  easy  of  comprehension. 

BUT,  when  we  are  required  to  believe,  that  a  whole  people 
readily  submitted  to  give  up  their  property  to  be  divided  anew ; 
that  they  renounced  luxury,  ostentation,  and  pleasure,  and  even 
the  use  of  money,  except  iron ;  that  they  were  obliged,  under 
severe  penalties,  from  which  their  kings  were  not  exempted, 
to  dine  in  publick  and  on  wretched  fare  ;  that  their  children 
were  taken  from  them  and  exposed  to  death,  if  adjudged  weakly 
and  infirm,  or,  if  permitted  to  live,  placed  under  the  tutelage 
of  publick  officers  ;  and  that  such  was  the  intolerable  rigour  of 
their  regulations,  that  actual  service  in  camp  was  a  welcome 
relaxation — when  we  read  all  this,  surely,  if  there  is  nothing  to 
justify  our  doubts,  there  is  nothing  that  can  suppress  our 
wonder.  We  yield  our  faith  at  once,  that  the  Lacedaemonians 
immediately  became  a  nation  of  heroes,  who  had  extinguished 
nature,  and  silenced  appetite  and  passion,  save  only  the  passion 
to  live  and  die  for  their  country. 

BY  this  expedient  we  make  the  Spartan  story  somewhat 
more  credible.  As  we  can  know  nothing  of  what  demigods 
would  do,  we  may  imagine  just  what  we  please.  But  men  now 
adays,  we  are  sure,  would  not  be  brought  to  adopt  such  laws, 
nor,  if  they  did,  long  to  observe  them. 

NEVERTHELESS,  we  know,  that  the  success  of  the  system  of 
Lycurgus  did  not  arise  from  the  superiority  of  his  race  of 
Spartans.  On  the  contrary,  so  far  were  they  from  being  su- 
periour  to  other  men,  that  he  found  them,  we  are  told,  worse. 
This  we  are  forced  to  believe  ;  for  he  found  them  factious— 
and  faction,  we  know,  is  as  sure  to  degrade  and  corrupt  the 


140  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

citizens  as  to  bewilder  and  inflame  them.  Indeed  he  left 
them  as  he  found  them,  and  as  they  are  represented  by  all  an 
tiquity,  faithless,  ferocious,  and  cruel,  yet  loving  their  country 
with  an  ardour  of  passion  and  with  a  disregard  of  justice,  that 
made  it  hateful  and  terrible  to  the  rest  of  mankind. 

WE  are  driven  back,  then,  to  consider  how  men,  and  very 
bad  men,  could  be  prevailed  on  to  establish,  and,  what  is  still 
more  surprising,  for  many  hundred  years  to  maintain  such 
self-denying  and  odious  institutions.  It  would  be  absurd  to 
suppose,  that  the  enthusiasm  kindled  by  Lycurgus  spread  so  far 
and  lasted  so  long.  This  sort  of  fire,  which  seldom  catches  any 
thing  but  light  combustibles,  only  flashes  and  expires.  We 
find,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  institutions  of  Lycurgus  had  a 
sort  of  awful  authority  to  fix  the  popular  caprice  and  over 
come  their  disgust,  to  charm  their  sages  and  animate  their 
heroes,  to  form  the  manners  and  control  the  policy  of  the  na 
tion  for  many  ages.  The  mere  popularity  of  his  system  would 
not  have  lasted  for  a  year  ;  and  though  superstition  might  do 
much,  nature  in  the  end  would  do  more,  and  resume  her 
violated  rights.  So  many  painful  exercises,  such  endless  and 
unsuiferable  privations  and  constraints  would  soon  exhaust 
the  patience  of  the  most  passive  wretches  that  ever  existed. 
It  was  said,  with  almost  as  much  truth  as  wit,  by  the  Athenian 
Alcibiades:  "no  wonder  the  Spartans  cheerfully  encounter 
death — it  is  a  welcome  relief  to  them  from  such  a  life  as  they 
are  obliged  to  lead." 

IT  is,  therefore,  after  all,  extremely  difficult  to  conceive, 
that  the  discipline  of  this  famous  legislator  was  intended  for 
the  body  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  city  of  Lacedsemon,  much 
less  for  the  whole  country  of  Laconia,  or  that  it  was  ever  so 
applied.  Human  nature  has  not  changed  for  the  worse  by 
the  lapse  of  twenty  six  hundred  years  ;  and  we  may  venture  to 
say,  that  there  is  no  people  now  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  who 
could  be  persuaded  or  forced  to  submit  to  such  a  discipline. 

THE  Jews,  it  is  true,  adopted  a  very  singular  body  of  laws  ; 
but  it  is  equally  true,  that  they  were  infinitely  less  obnoxious 
to  the  sentiments  and  feelings  of  nature  than  those  of  Lycur- 


OF  LYCURGUS.  441 

gus.  It  is  also  true,  that,  under  the  immediate  government 
of  God  himself,  manifested  by  signs  and  wonders,  by  awful 
warnings  and  signal  punishments,  the  Hebrews  repeatedly 
yielded  to  their  natural  repugnance,  and  departed  from  the 
law  of  Moses.  Yet  Lycurgus,  without  any  divine,  and  even 
without  the  regal  authority  in  Sparta,  is  commonly  supposed, 
not  only  to  have  wielded  the  political  power  of  the  state,  a 
thing  not  in  the  least  difficult  to  suppose,  but  to  have  changed 
or  extinguished  the  inclinations  of  every  Lacedaemonian  heart, 
and  to  have  substituted  in  their  stead  a  passion  for  self-denial, 
restraint,  and  suffering. 

YET  all  the  writers  of  antiquity  represent  the  discipline  of 
Lycurgus,  no  less  than  his  political  constitution,  as  being  in 
full  force  over  all  the  citizens  ;  that  food,  dress,  sports,  con 
versation,  and  even  the  intercourse  of  the  sexes,  were  restrict 
ed  by  law  ;  in  short,  that  a  system  of  regulations  unspeakably- 
more  minute,  vexatious,  disgusting,  and  tyrannical  than  we 
find  prescribed  for  the  fraternity  of  La  Trappe,  or  the  monks 
of  the  order  of  St.  Francis,  was  inflexibly  imposed  on  a  nation, 
and  quietly  obeyed  for  many  ages.  All  this  may,  possibly,  be 
true  ;  and  we  must  yield  our  belief,  if  we  cannot  help  it ;  but 
it  would  be  almost  as  hard  to  command  our  faith  in  this  extent 
of  the  story,  as  our  obedience  to  the  laws  of  Sparta. 

IN  this  exigency,  and  with  this  hard  alternative  before  us,  it 
is  hoped,  that  those  who  are  profoundly  versed  in  classick 
learning  will  not  deem  it  treason  against  the  ancients,  if  we 
propose  some  HINTS  AND  CONJECTURES  tending  to  throw 
light  upon  the  subject,  and  which,  if  well  grounded,  may  some 
what  better  reconcile  the  long-unquestioned  miracles  of  Spar 
tan  legislation  with  common  sense  and  the  unchangeable  uni 
formity  of  the  human  character. 

Now,  though  it  is  inconceivable,  that  a  whole  nation  should 
submit  to  the  numberless,  endless,  intolerable  vexations  and 
rigours  of  the  Spartan  discipline,  it  is  by  no  means  incredible, 
that  two  or  three  thousand  of  them  should.  The  wandering 
Tartars  who  live  encamped  in  tents  might,  possibly,  be  sub 
jected  to  a  pretty  strict  military  regulation  j  although  it  is 
56 


442  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

certain;  that  they  are  not ;  but  a  people  dispersed  over  a  whole 
territory,  living  in  houses,  and  cherishing,  as  from  their  situa 
tion  they  must,  the  delights  that  a  fixed  home  affords,  cannot 
be  made  monks,  and  be  cut  off  from  society,  while  they  are 
suffered  to  remain  warm  in  its  bosom. 

WHY,  then,  are  we  not  permitted  to  suppose,  that  the  sys 
tem  of  Lycurgus,  so  far  as  it  regulated  the  meals,  education, 
dress,  and  indifferent  actions  of  the  citizens,  was  made  for  a 
particular  class^  and  enforced  only  upon  them,  and  not  upon 
the  mass  of  the  free  inhabitants  ;  that  this  class  was  formed 
exclusively  of  the  Spartan,  or  noble  families  ;  that  the  object 
of  this  system  was  not,  as  is  generally  believed,  by  changing 
or  expelling  human  nature,  to  raise  a  whole  nation  above  it, 
but  to  raise  a  governing  aristocracy  above  that  nation.  To 
illustrate  the  conjecture,  may  we  not  imagine  these  Spartans 
to  have  been  to  the  rest  of  the  free  citizens  of  the  state  in  point 
of  rank,  privilege,  power,  and  numbers,  what  the  knights  of 
St.  John  lately  were  to  the  people  of  Malta.  It  is  probable, 
there  was  a  system  of  education  extremely  rigid  for  the  nobles  ; 
and  a  system  of  discipline  for  the  national  militia  quite  distinct 
from  the  former.  Lycurgus  distributed  the  lands  to  these 
latter  in  thirty  nine  thousand  lots,  or  shares,  of  which  less  than 
five  thousand  were  assigned  to  the  citizens  of  Sparta.  Now, 
as  we  read  of  no  education  of  the  youth  according  to  the  rules 
of  Lycurgus  out  of  that  city,  \ve  can  scarcely  refrain  from  adopt 
ing  both  the  before  mentioned  conjectures,  viz.  that  the  famous 
plan  of  Spartan  education  was  only  for  the  nobles  or  their  sons 
who  were  in  the  city  ;  and  that  the  military  system,  if  there  was 
one,  which  we  cannot  doubt,  was  distinct  from  it,  and  embrac 
ed  the  whole  feudal  tenants  or  national  militia. 

ADMITTING  these  suppositions  to  be  well  grounded,  our 
difficulties  disappear  at  once. 

THE  rules  for  a  patrician  academy,  and  for  a  fixed  militia, 
though  severe,  might  be  enforced  by  the  pubiick  authority. 
The  former  had  power'  and  rank,  and  the  latter  had  lands  to 
stimulate  and  reward  their  obedience.  The  very  circumstance 
of  setting  apart  a  ckss  of  young  men  for  the  noblest  of  all  pro- 


OF  LYCURGUS.  443 

fessions,  the  profession  of  arms,  would  naturally  inspire  the 
young  Spartans  with  the  esprit  clu  corps,  with  the  lofty  pride 
that  would  more  cheerfully  seek  than  shun  the  occasions  to 
make  efforts  and  sacrifices.  In  framing  the  rules  for  the  edu 
cation  and  discipline  of  this  noble  class,  there  was  ample  scope 
for  the  genius  of  Lycurgus,  and  for  the  display  of  his  deep 
insight  into  the  secrets  of  the  human  heart.  Instead  of  extin 
guishing  nature,  and  acting,  as  it  is  generally  thought  he  did, 
without  means,  or,  at  least,  without  any  that  we  can  believe  to 
be  adequate,  he  had  only  to  act  with  the  aid  of  one  of  the 
strongest  passions,  and  to  apply  that  love  of  distinction,  which 
is  one  of  the  most  powerful  agents  in  the  transactions  of  man 
kind.  Hence  it  was,  that  every  Sjiartan  thought  it  better  not 
to  live  at  all  than  live  a  coward.  Hence,  Leonidas  and  his 
little  troop,  at  Thermopylae,  did  all  that  human  nature  could 
do — but  they  did  no  more  ;  no  more  than  British  sailors  do 
now  ;  no  more  than  American  sailors  are  capable  of  doing,  and 
will  certainly  do,  whenever  our  government  shall  feel  some 
what  of  their  spirit.  The  military  character,  which  causes  a 
generous  devotion  of  life  to  honour,  is  no  prodigy :  it  is  the 
familiar  business  of  every  day  of  modern  warfare. 

ON  examining  these  conjectures  of  the  restricted,  instead  of 
the  universal,  application  of  the  discipline  of  Lycurgus,  their 
conformity  with  the  known  laws  of  human  action,  will  afford 
ground  to  admit  them,  as  at  least  plausible.  Let  us  review  the 
history  of  the  Lacedaemonians,  and  see,  if  we  cannot  find  mat 
ter  of  corroboration. 

LESS  than  one  hundred  years  after  the  war  of  Troy,  the 
descendants  of  Hercules,  who  had  been  exiled,  and  in  a  long 
course  of  years  had  greatly  increased  in  numbers,  renewed  the 
attempt  to  recover  possession  of  the  Peloponnesus.  With  the 
assistance  of  a  body  of  Dorians,  then  the  most  ferocious  bar 
barians  in  all  Greece,  they  succeeded,  expelled  most  of  the 
inhabitants,  who  took  refuge  in  Attica  and  on  the  coast  of  Asia 
Minor,  as  well  as  in  the  islands  of  the  Ionian  sea.  The  He- 
raclidae  subverted  the  thrones  of  the  princes  of  the  Peloponne- 
sian  states,  seized  on  the  lands  for  themselves  and  such  ef 


444  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

their  Dorian  allies  as  chose  to  remain  with  them,  and'reduo 
ed  to  slavery  such  of  the  old  stock  of  inhabitants  as  did  not 
betake  themselves  to  flight.  Two  sons  of  Aristodemus,  of 
the  race  of  Hercules,  were  placed  on  the  throne  of  Lace^ 
daemon. 

IT  is  well  known,  that  Hercules  for  his  exploits  was  deified  j 
and,  as  long  as  paganism  was  the  popular  religion  of  Greece* 
which  it  continued  to  be  fifteen  hundred  years  after  this  event, 
his  name  was  adored  with  the  most  enthusiastick  devotion. 
He  was  most  emphatically  the  hero  and  the  deity  of  the  Greeks. 
Now,  as  the  return  of  the  Heraclidae  caused  one  of  the  most 
thorough  and  sweeping  revolutions  recorded  in  all  history,  so 
complete  as  in  a  great  measure  to  change  the  inhabitants,  and 
entirely  to  change  the  governing  classes,  and  as  they  came 
back  to  Peloponnesus  with  the  double  claim  of  being  conquer 
ors  and  the  progeny  of  a  god,  it  is  plain,  there  was  a  patrician, 
heaven-descended  class  existing  in  the  state  long  before  the 
age  of  Lycurgus,  engrossing  to  themselves  a  great  part  of  the 
lands,  and  all  the  powers  and  advantages  of  the  government. 

IT-  is  impossible  to  say  positively,  whether  this  class  consist 
ed  only  of  the  race  of  Hercules,  or  whether  it  included  also 
some  of  the  chiefs  of  the  Dorians.  As  Lycurgus  is  said  to  be 
only  the  tenth  in  descent  from  Hercules,  the  Heraclidae,  though 
sufficiently  numerous  for  an  order  of  nobility,  could  have  been 
scarcely  numerous  enough  to  keep  the  remains  of  a  conquered 
people  in  subjection.  It  is  probable,  that  a  large  part  of  the 
holders  of  the  conquered  lands  were  not  of  that  heroick  race. 
This  is  the  more  readily  to  be  supposed,  as  Laconia  is  repre 
sented  in  very  early  times  as  a  populous  country,  and  contain 
ing  a  hundred  cities.  These,  no  doubt,  were  inconsiderable 
towns  ;  yet,  after  allowing  for  a  very  great  emigration  in  con 
sequence  of  the  conquest,  we  may  believe,  that  the  native 
inhabitants  still  outnumbered  their  conquerors.  The  descen 
dants  of  Hercules,  being  princes,  were  exclusively  allowed  the 
command  of  the  armies,  the  exercise  of  all  the  powers  of 
government,  and  their  hereditary  rank  as  an  order  of  nobles, 
afterwards  called,  by  way  of  distinction,  Sfiartans.  The  rest 


OF  LYCtTRGUS.  445 

of  the  citizens,  who  became  distinguished  by~the  appellation 
of  Lacedaemonians,  were  the  conquering  soldiery,  to  whom 
lands  were  assigned  in  reward  for  their  past  services,  and  as  a 
pledge  of  their  future  obedience.  Thus,  we  may  believe,  a 
governing  aristocracy  and  a  national  militia,  in  subordination 
to  that  body,  were  called  into  existence  at  the  time  and  by  the 
circumstances  of  the  conquest. 

IT  is  also  to  be  remembered,  that  all  the  governments  of 
Greece  were  originally  formed  by  the  confederacy  of  cities ; 
and  in  all  of  them  the  capital  city  aspired  to  the  chief,  and  in 
every  case  where  it  was  practicable,  to  the  sole  authority  over 
the  rest.  In  several  of  the  confederacies  this  ambitious  pro 
ject  was  resisted  with  success.  But  in  the  earliest  antiquity 
and  immediately  after  the  return  of  the  Heraclidae,  we  learn, 
that  Sparta  was  chosen  as  the  residence  of  the  kings  and  seat 
of  government,  and  that  the  domination  of  that  city  was  stretch 
ed  over  all  the  towns  of  Laconia.  Helos  alone  resisted  and 
was  subdued ;  and  its  inhabitants  were  reduced  to  a  sort  of 
qualified  slavery,  by  which  they  were  fixed  to  the  soil  as  pea 
sants  to  labour  for  their  Spartan  landlords.  Now,  as  Sparta 
governed  the  state,  and  the  aristocracy  governed  Sparta,  for 
the  kings,  except  in  time  of  war,  were  cyphers,  we  cannot 
hesitate  to  admit,  that  these  nobles  were  chiefly  collected  as 
residents  in  the  city  of  Sparta.  The  very  fact,  that  there  were 
two  kings,  must  have  annihilated  their  authority,  if  any  had 
been  intrusted  to  them.  That  circumstance  and  every  other 
that  has  been  transmitted  to  us  by  history  proves,  that  the  gov 
ernment  was  in  the  hands  of  an  aristocracy. 

HENCE  we  discern  the  best  reasons  in  the  world,  why  Ly- 
curgus  did,  and  Solon  did  not  establish  an  aristocracy.  Neither 
of  them  could  create  or  annihilate  the  materials  of  their  re 
spective  governments.  The  people  of  Attica,  who  called 
themselves  with  no  little  vanity,  uvro^ove^  or  the  original  peo 
ple,  constituted  a  democracy,  which  could  not  be  forced,  and 
would  not  be  persuaded  to  establish  a  body  of  governing  nobles. 
Lycurgus,  on  the  contrary,  found  a  numerous  and  powerful 
race  of  the  first  conquerors,  outnumbered  by  slaves  who  were 


446  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

kept  in  subjection  by  an  aristocracy  with  two  kings  at  their 
head.  Accordingly,  it  seems  to  have  been  the  utmost  extent 
of  his  undertaking,  to  new  model  the  government  rather  than 
the  nation.  The  aristocracy  was  itself  in  danger  of  degenerat 
ing  into  an  oligarchy,  and  was  exposed  to  perish  by  its  own 
inevitable  factions,  as  well  as  by  the  silent  growth  and  conse 
quent  encroach  ments  of  the  unprivileged  classes  of  the  citizens. 
Already  the  extreme  disorders  of  the  state  portended  convul 
sions  and  revolution. 

IN  this  emergency  he  devised  such  expedients  as  would 
give,  not  liberty  to  the  people,  which  seems  not  to  have  been 
in  the  least  degree  his  concern,  but  stability  and  perpetuity  to 
the  aristocracy.  He  formed,  or,  perhaps,  only  revived  a  senate 
of  twenty  eight  members,  elected  for  life  by  the  numerous 
body  of  the  noble  Spartans.  These  Sjiartans  had  also  their 
assemblies  monthly,  in  which  they  exercised  very  important 
functions  of  the  government.  Thus  two  bodies  were  formed, 
who  may  be  thought  to  bear  some  resemblance  to  the  houses 
of  lords  and  commons  in  England. 

HAVING  thus  placed  the  government  in  the  hands  of  the 
Spartans,  much  was  still  necessaiy  to  enable  them  to  maintain 
it.  In  that  age  pre-eminence  could  neither  be  gained,  nor  se 
cured  by  commerce  or  arts,  but  only  by  arms.  Here,  then,  we 
see  the  obvious  necessity  of  the  case,  that/  Lycurgus  should, 
by  his  system  of  education  and  his  discipline,  make  these 
Spartans  really  superiour  to  the  men  they  governed.  This 
was  the  more  necessary,  as  we  are  informed  by  ancient  writers, 
that  they  were  detested  by  the  rest  of  the  inhabitants. 

THIS  being  admitted,  and  it  can  scarcely  be  denied,  we  can 
no  longer  so  much  as  conceive,  that  it  was  the  policy  or  any 
part  of  the  plan  of  Lycurgus  to  include  all  the  free  citizens 
of  Laconia,  or  even  of  the  city  of  Sparta,  in  his  great  system 
of  education.  It  was  his  object  to  establish  an  incontestible 
superiority  in  favour  of  the  Spartans.  By  infusing  into  the 
other  citizens  the  pride  and  desperate  fanaticism  of  the  nobles, 
the  former,  being  also  perfectly  well  trained  to  arms,  would 


OP  LYCURGUS.  447 

have  been  as  incapable  of  submission  and  as  capable  of  rule  as 
their  superiours. 

ADMITTING  that  nothing  is  so  much  for  the  interest  of  a 
class  of  men  as  power,  and  they  are  very  apt  to  think  that  no 
thing  is,  then  surely  nothing  could  be  more  for  the  interest  of 
the  aristocracy  than  the  laws  of  Lycurgus,  for  in  consequence 
of  them  they  maintained  their  authority  over  the  state  for  many 
ages.  The  power  of  the  Roman  patricians  was  from  the  first 
balanced,  imperfectly  enough  we  confess,  by  the  people ;  but 
the  whole  power  of  the  Lacedaemonian  state  was  engrossed  by 
the  Sfiartans.  Until  the  establishment  of  the  ephori,  one  hun 
dred  and  thirty  years  after  Lycurgus,  it  does  not  appear,  that, 
in  respect  to  political  power,  there  was  any  other  people :  the 
rest  of  the  inhabitants  of  Laconia  and  Sparta  were  nothing. 

IF  Lycurgus  met  with  infinite  difficulty  in  getting  his  laws 
established,  it  is  certain  he  had  vast  means  of  influence  in  the 
pride  and  ambition  of  the  nobles,  who  were  so  greatly  inte 
rested  in  their  adoption.  In  so  great  a  length  of  time  as  had 
elapsed  since  the  return  of  the  Heraclidx,  many  of  these  no 
bles,  and  probably  still  more  of  the  soldiery,  had  diminished  or 
alienated  their  original  lots  of  land.  The  poor  members  of 
the  aristocracy  and  of  the  militia  would,  of  course,  insist  upon 
restoring  the  ancient  division  of  lands  by  a  new  assignment. 
Lycurgus,  knowing  that  power  follows  property,  and  especially 
property  in  lands,  and  intending  to  prevent  all  rivalship  with 
the  aristocracy  by  giving  to  that  body  and  their  military  depen 
dants  a  monopoly  of  the  lands,  was  inclined  and  enabled  to 
restore  the  original  division. 

IT  cannot  be  believed,  that,  without  such  reasons  and  helps, 
he  could  have  originated  a  plan  for  an  arbitrary  assignment  of 
the  territory.  On  the  contrary,  it  may  be  fairly  presumed,  that 
very  few,  and  those  great  proprietors,  were  dispossessed,  and 
very  many  were  accommodated.  By  thus  creating  a  stock  of 
popularity  with  one  class  of  men,  and  those  the  most  nume 
rous,  he  could  use  it  to  compel  the  submission  of  another  and 
the  most  refractory.  This,  we  arc  informed,  is  precisely  what 


448  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

he  did.  Thus  he  established  a  perpetual  fund  for  the  support 
of  this  ruling  aristocracy. 

THAT  it  might  be  perpetual,  he  made  the  lands  unalienable, 
though  inheritable  ;  he  proscribed  all  trade,  manufactures,  and 
luxury,  and  even  gold  and  silver  coins.  He  foresaw,  that  in 
dustry  and  trade  would  bring  in  wealth  ;  and  that  wealth  would 
confer  distinction.  In  this  event  the  military  spirit  would  de 
cline,  and  the  unprivileged  orders  of  the  state  would  rise  into 
importance.  To  guard  against  this  disturbance  of  the  opera 
tion  of  his  system,  he  exerted  all  his  great  abilities  to  provide 
every  political  expedient  possible  to  keep  Sparta  poor  and 
warlike. 

IT  will  never  be  imagined,  when  he  gave  the  purse  to  one 
set  of  men,  or,  in  other  words,  all  the  lands  to  the  aristocracy 
and  the  military,  that  he  gave  the  sword  to  another  set.  On 
the  contrary,  we  shall  find,  that  he  established  a  complete  mo 
nopoly  of  power  and  property  in  favour  of  the  Sfiartans.  It 
has  been  already  observed,  that  this  governing  order  resided 
chiefly  in  the  city ;  and  that  we  no  where  read  of  a  Spartan 
education  out  of  it.  The  inhabitants  of  Laconia,  we  are  told, 
were  deemed  inferiour  to  those  of  the  city,  not  having  the  same 
education. 

ARE  we  to  suppose,  that  the  inhabitants  of  even  the  city  of 
Sparta,  or  all  such  as  were  free,  were  indiscriminately  fed  at  the 
publick  tables,  and  daily  subjected  to  the  whole  discipline  of  Ly- 
curgus  ?  Even  this  is  incredible.  It  cannot  be  imagined,  that  the 
landholders,  of  whom  the  number  in  Sparta  and  its  immediate 
territory  was  at  first  nine  thousand,  were  thus  assembled  and 
fed.  If  we  take  half  that  number  for  the  city  alone,  we  shall 
not  readily  admit,  that  they  were  educated  and  trained  in  this 
manner. 

WE  should  confine  our  calculation  to  the  noble  Spartans 
only  ;  for  Sparta  was  undoubtedly  a  great  city,  though  we 
know  not  the  extent  of  its  population.  But,  as  it  contained 
inhabitants  enough,  though  wholly  unfortified  and  without 
walls,  twice  to  repulse  Epaminondas  with  his  victorious  army, 
we  may  reckon  Sparta  to  be  equal  to  Thebes  or  Athens.  It 


OP  LYCURGUS.  449 

was  accounted  one  of  the  great  cities  of  Greece,  and  might 
have  fifty  or  sixty  thousand  inhabitants,  certainly  ten  times  too 
many  to  be  fed  in  the  publick  halls  or  in  the  barracks.  As  the 
landholders  were  a  militia,  and  not  a  regular  standing  army,  it 
is  on  that  account  the  less  to  be  admitted,  that  they  were  daily 
drawn  out,  exercised,  and  fed.  Xenophon  says,  he  has  seen 
five  thousand  Lacedaemonians  assembled  together,  and  was 
scarcely  able  to  pick  out  thirty  Spartans.  The  Lacedecmo- 
nian  armies  often  marched  on  expeditions  with  less  than  one 
hundred  of  this  order. 

THIS  distinction  was  not  merely  nominal ;  if  it  had  been,  it 
would  have  soon  disappeared  from  its  frivolousness  ;  and  it 
must  have  been  frivolous  to  the  last  degree,  if  these  Spartans 
had  not  received  a  different  sort  of  education,  and  claimed  a 
very  superiour  rank  and  authority  in  the  state.  When  one 
hundred  and  thirty  Sjiartans  were  shut  up  and  besieged  in  the 
little  island  of  Sphacteria,  the  government  was  extremely  agi 
tated,  and  offered  to  make  the  most  extraordinary  concessions 
to  Athens  to  procure  the  release  of  these  men.  To  the  aris 
tocracy,  their  destruction  seemed  like  a  dismemberment  of 
their  body. 

THIS  governing  class,  being  also  the  fighting  class,  was 
continually  diminishing.  On  the  defeat  of  the  Lacedemonians 
at  Leuctra,  the  government  was  thrown  into  the  deepest  con 
sternation,  because  so  unusual  a  number  of  Sfiartans  and  the 
king  Cleombrotus  were  slain.  They  saw  with  pain  and  ter- 
rour  the  reduction  of  the  numbers,  and  the  proportionate  re 
duction  of  the  influence  and  power  of  their  order. 

IT  may  after  all  be  said,  although  these  facts  prove,  that  all 
the  free  inhabitants  of  Sparta  were  not  Spartans,  yet  it  still  re 
mains  a  question,  whether  all  the  former  did  not  receive  the 
strict  education  prescribed  by  Lycurgus. 

IT  is  true,  there  is  no  express  evidence  to  that  point ;  but 
we  may  take  these  facts  as  evidence  of  the  spirit  of  the  govern 
ment,  and  conclusive  evidence,  that  from  its  very  nature  it 
could  have  no  other  spirit.  That  being  premised,  it  would  be 
truly  surprising,  that  the  strict  discipline  and  education  of  the 
57 


450  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

great  legislator  should  be  enforced  upon  all  the  citizens.  As 
u  common  education  makes  men,  could  it  be,  that  a  Spartan 
education,  which  made  heroes,  was  lavished  upon  the  trades 
men  of  the  city  ;  (for  the  necessary  trades  were  allowed  from 
the  first,  and,  no  doubt,  many  more  had  got  footing  there,) 
upon  the  strangers,  who  might  happen  to  reside  in  the  city  ; 
and,  above  all,  upon  the  numerous  description  of  the  sons  of 
Helots,  who  had  been  made  free  for  their  services  to  the 
state  ? 

As  a  mortal  hatred  subsisted  between  those  freedmen  and 
the  nobles,  it  cannot  be  allowed,  that  these  latter  had  permitted, 
much  less  required,  an  exact  equality  as  to  the  use  of  arms 
and  every  admired  accomplishment  that  could  be  derived  from 
education.  On  that  supposition,  ten  or  twenty  thousand  base- 
born  heroes  would  have  snatched  the  sway  from  the  hands  of 
less  than  one  thousand  heaven-descended  heroes  of  the  blood 
of  Hercules.  The  education  that  conferred  glory  and  distinc 
tion,  for  its  chief  object  was  to  make  every  thing  else  seem 
vile,  would  have  made  power  tempting,  too  tempting  to  remain 
for  ages  within  reach,  yet  untouched. 

ON  these  grounds  we  seem  to  be  authorized  to  conclude,  that 
the  Spartan  education  and  discipline  were  not  imposed  on  all 
the  free  inhabitants,  although  the  language  used  by  all  the 
ancient  writers  on  the  subject  scarcely  admits  of  their  restric 
tion  to  the  noble  and  military  classes.  Polybius,  who  is  as 
remarkable  for  his  gravity  as  for  his  good  sense,  warmly  ex 
claims  in  praise  of  Lycurgus,  as  a  sort  of  divinity,  who  had 
created  a  nation  anew  by  his  system  of  education. 

WE  may  conjecture,  that  the  noble  class,  being  the  only 
one  that  attracted  much  notice,  was  put  for  the  nation  ;  or  it 
might  be,  that,  while  the  sons  of  the  nobles  were  educated  by 
the  state,  great  numbers  of  an  inferiour  order  were  trained  as 
soldiers  ;  and  these  distinctions  being  known  to  every  body  in 
the  time  of  Xenophon,  were  not  deemed  to  require  a  minute 
explanation.  However  that  may  be,  Herodotus,  whose  notion 
of  the  universality  of  the  Spartan  system  seems  to  be  like  that 
of  all  succeeding  writers,  uses  an  expression,  that  will  coun- 


OF  LYCURGUS.  451 

lenance  our  restriction  of  it,  as  we  have  before  suggested. 
Giving  an  account  of  the  dignity  of  the  Spartan  kings,  he  says  : 
"  if  they  dine  at  the  publick  feasts,  as  they  are  obliged  to  do, 
unless  specially  excused,  they  are  allowed  a  double  portion  of 
the  food,  as  also  if  they  are  feasted  by  a  private  citizen" 
How  could  a  private  citizen  invite  a  Spartan  king  to  dine  with 
him,  if  he  were  himself  obliged  to  dine  in  the  publick  hall  ? 
May  we  not,  then,  infer  from  this  passage  of  Herodotus,  that 
the  citizens  of  Sparta  dined  and  supped  in  their  own  houses  ? 

THAT  the  regulations  of  Lycurgus  for  the  education  of 
youth,  and  for  convening  the  citizens  at  the  publick  meals, 
were  not  extended  to  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  city  of  Sparta 
and  its  territory,  may  be  inferred  from  some  of  the  facts  trans 
mitted  to  us  by  Xenophon  and  Plutarch.  When  a  male  child 
was  born,  and,  after  being  examined  by  publick  officers,  pro 
nounced  sound  and  worth  the  bringing  up,  one  of  the  nine 
thousand  lots  was  immediately  assigned  to  him.  Now,  if  a 
tradesman's,  a  slave's,  or  a  stranger's  son  should  happen  to  be 
born  of  as  good  a  shape  as  a  noble  Spartan's,  is  it  to  be  suppos 
ed,  a  lot  would  be  given  to  the  former  and  refused  to  the 
latter,  who  might  come  into  the  world  the  day  after  they  were 
all  disposed  of.  A  populous  city,  like  Sparta,  would  have 
more  healthy  male  children  than  lots.  But  supposing  the  dis 
tribution  confined  to  the  continually  diminishing  military  class 
of  Spartans,  there  would  be  more  lots  than  children ;  and  this 
was  in  fact  the  case.  The  lands  assigned  as  a  fund  for  the 
military  class,  proved  more  than  sufficient  for  the  number  of 
Spartans.  Supposing  it  liable  to  be  absorbed  by  other  chil 
dren,  it  would  not  only  have  proved  insufficient,  but  it  would 
have  been  employed  to  defeat  its  original  use  and  destination, 
to  raise  the  degraded  classes,  and  to  stint  or  starve  the  military 
class. 

ANOTHER  fact  is  worth  observation.  At  the  messes  or 
tables  of  the  publick  meals,  which,  we  are  told,  admitted 
fifteen,  no  person  was  received  without  the  consent  of  the 
whole  company.  Can  we,  then,  suppose  for  a  moment,  the 
law  required  every  inhabitant  to  eat  at  these  tables,  and  yet 


452  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

authorized  every  citizen  to  exclude  him  ?  Where  was  he  to 
dine  ?  And  where,  let  it  be  asked,  were  those  persons  to  dine, 
who,  having  lost  their  arms,  or  turned  their  backs  in  battle, 
were  stigmatized  and  shunned  by  all  citizens  ? 

AGAIN,  we  are  told,  the  very  children  were  obliged  to  attend 
those  meals,  because  they  heard  only  wise  and  solid  discourse 
on  such  occasions.  If  the  ignorant,  sordid  rabble  of  a  great 
city  were  really  seated  at  those  tables,  will  any  man  think,  that 
Lycurgus  himself,  if  he  had  lived  as  long  as  his  institutions, 
could  have  kept  order  I  or  that,  without  a  miraculous  inspira 
tion,  as  often  as  the  tables  were  spread,  the  conversation  could 
have  been  edifying  ?  It  is  incredible  and  absurd. 

THE  sons  of  noble  Spartans  were,  no  doubt,  educated  by  the 
state,  were  kept  in  an  academy,  dined  and  supped  together, 
and,  probably,  it  was  the  official  duty  of  the  kings  to  superin 
tend  their  education.  They  were  trained,  not  as  citizens,  but 
us  rulers  ;  not  simply  as  soldiers,  but  as  generals.  To  perpe 
tuate  the  aristocracy,  the  government  took  care  to  exclude 
accident,  caprice,  and  folly  as  much  as  possible  from  all  in 
fluence  on  the  young  nobles.  It  is  obvious,  that  the  stability 
of  the  government  depended  on  its  transmitting  its  peculiar 
identity  of  perfection  from  generation  to  generation.  All  this 
makes  it  natural,  that  the  rulers  should  be  educated  by  the  state, 
and  that  the  citizens  who  had  only  to  obey,  should  not  be.  This 
idea  derives  some  further  force  from  the  observation  of  Plu 
tarch,  who  says:  u  the  chief  object  of  Lycurgus  being  a  sys 
tem  of  education,  and  to  establish  habits  and  manners,  he  would 
not  permit  his  laws  to  be  reduced  to  writing."  This  can  hard 
ly  be  supposed,  if  they  were  intended  for  a  whole  nation.  The 
class  of  Spartans,  though  amounting  to  several  thousands  ori 
ginally,  were  reduced  in  the  time  of  Xenophon  to  about  seven 
hundred  ;  and  even  of  these  the  greater  part  were  in  a  state  of 
poverty.  Agis  and  Cleomenes,  two  kings  of  Lacedxmon,  suc- 
cessively  attempted  to  restore  the  strict  discipline  of  Lycurgus. 
Plutarch  informs  us,  that  Cleomenes,  when  attempting  to  en 
force  a  new  division  of  the  lands,  alleged  in  recommendation 
of  the  measure,  that  it  would  provide  means  for  admitting 


OF  LYCURGU8.  453 

foreigners  of  merit  to  citizenship.  The  state  in  that  case,  he 
said,  would  no  longer  want  defenders,  alluding  to  the  reduced 
number  of  Sfiartans.  This  government  had  ever  been  to  the 
last  degree  averse  from  granting  citizenship,  precisely  because 
the  exclusive  possessors  of  power  are  ever  unwilling  to  admit 
partners.  Now,  if  there  were  many  thousand  able-bodied  brave 
men  in  Sparta,  as  Cleomenes  knew  there  were,  for  he  led  a 
gallant  army  of  them  into  the  field,  why  did  he  lament  the  want 
of  defenders  of  the  state  ?  Why  did  he  speak  of  admitting 
foreigners  to  take  lands  and  become  citizens,  when  it  was  so 
easy  a  thing  to  raise  Lacedxmonians  to  be  Spartans,  especially 
too  if  they  had  received  the  same  publick  education  ?  Tt  is 
however  evident  from  this  passage  of  Plutarch,  that  they  had 
not  received  such  an  education,  that  they  did  not  hold  so  high 
a  rank  in  the  state,  and  that  it  could  not  be  gratuitously  con 
ferred  upon  them.  Noble  foreigners  might  be  made  citizens 
without  any  degradation  of  the  Spartan  pride  ;  but  the  admis 
sion  of  the  plebeian  inhabitants  of  Sparta  to  a  higher  rank  would 
be  a  source  both  of  individual  mortification  and  of  publick  dis 
order  :  the  partition  between  ranks  would  be  broken  down. 

WE  shall  be  further  confirmed  in  our  opinion  of  the  ex 
clusive  aristocratical  policy  of  the  Spartan  government  by  a 
closer  observation  of  its  effects. 

IN  the  Lacedaemonian  state  there  were  two  descriptions  of 
slaves,  the  Helots,  who  were  an  oppressed,  degraded  peasan 
try,  the  cultivators  of  the  soil  on  a  fixed  rent  for  their  Spartan 
landlords ;  and  the  domestick  slaves,  who  were  treated  with 
still  greater  rigour.  These  two  classes  are  supposed  to  have 
amounted  to  nearly  one  half  the  population.  The  free  citizens 
may  be  also  placed  in  two  classes,  the  Spartans  and  the  Lace 
dxmonians.  These  latter  must  at  all  times  have  greatly  ex 
ceeded  the  Spartans  in  number,  yet  by  the  original  plan  of 
Lycurgus  their  political  power  was  next  to  nothing. 

THE  kings  and  their  wives,  the  senators  and  all  magistrates, 
except  the  ephori,  and  it  is  believed  all  military  officers  of 
high  rank,  must  have  been  Spartans.  The  Spartans  were 
electors  also  of  the  senators  for  life ;  but,  as  the  choice  was 


454  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

determined  by  a  computation  of  the  number  of  suffrages  by 
the  noise  of  the  acclamations,  in  favour  of  a  candidate,  it  may  be 
conjectured,  the  senate  in  effect  filled  up  the  vacancies  in  its 
own  body.  A  Spartan  assembly  was  held  once  a  month.  Thus, 
we  see,  the  pow;ers  of  government  were  engrossed  by  a  senate, 
and  its  dignities  and  privileges  by  an  hereditary  aristocracy. 

THERE  was  indeed  a  general  assembly  of  the  Lacedemonian 
nation  to  determine  on  peace,  war,  and  alliances.  To  this 
assembly  deputies  from  the  several  cities  and  from  the  allied 
states  were  admitted.  Yet,  as  it  was  convened  at  Sparta,  as  its 
objects  concerned  chiefly  the  external  policy,  and  as  the  effec 
tive  government  was  in  the  hands  of  the  aristocracy,  it  was  not, 
found  to  disturb  or  divide  their  monopoly  of  power. 

To  perpetuate  this  order  of  tilings,  Lycurgus  was  not  more 
solicitous  by  his  institutions  to  elevate  one  class,  than  to  depress 
and  disarm  every  other.  We  must  repeat  it,  for  this  reason 
it  wus,  he  forbad  all  arts,  except  such  as  could  not  be  dispensed 
with  ;  even  learning  itself  was  denied  its  honours  ;  he  did  not 
allow  his  Spartans  to  travel  into  foreign  countries,  nor  foreign 
ers  to  be  admitted  to  Sparta ;  he  interdicted  trade,  luxury,  and 
gold  and  silver ;  he  would  have  his  Spartans  wholly  intent  on 
military  distinction  :  arms  and  only  arms  should  confer  glory. 
His  Spartans  did  not  labour  themselves,  but  the  Helots  labour 
ed  for  them.  Not  only  was  the  monopoly  of  power  complete, 
but  the  roots  and  seeds  of  future  rivalship  by  the  depressed 
classes  of  the  society  seemed  to  be  exterminated. 

HERE  let  us  pause  to  make  a  reflection.  For  more  than 
two  thousand  years  the  world  has  been  loud  and  violent  in  its 
pane gy rick  of  Spartan  -virtue,  because  Lycurgus  had  bestowed 
all  possible  care  to  make  his  nobles  brave,  without  having 
employed  the  least  to  make  them  honest ;  because  he  had 
made  them  love  power  better  than  labour ;  because  they  lOved 
their  country,  while  they  owned  and  governed  it ;  and  because, 
when  riches  did  not  command  honour,  and  titled  poverty  did, 
they  sought  honour  in  the  only  way  in  which  it  was  to  be  had, 
and  held  that  preferable  which  every  body  in  that  age  actually 
preferred.  Spartan  virtue  did  not,  most  certainly,  include 


OF  LYCURGUS.  455 

morals.  The  Roman  Cincinnatus  was  proud  of  his  birth, 
and,  probably,  much  the  prouder  for  his  poverty.  It  is  not 
at  this  degenerate  day  at  all  essential  to  the  glory  of  a  great 
general,  that  he  should  have  a  great  estate. 

EFFECTUAL  as  for  some  ages  this  policy  of  Lycurgus  was, 
time  and  the  revolution  of  human  affairs  at  length  gradually 
subverted  it.  The  depressed  classes  of  the  state  slowly  rose 
from  the  ground,  and  from  the  feet  of  the  aristocracy,  and 
claimed  and  took  their  station  in  society. 

IT  may  be  supposed,  the  Spartans  exacted  at  first  from 
the  Helots  who  cultivated  the  soil  as  large  a  part  of  the  pro 
duce  as  they  possibly  could.  It  was  easier  to  require  than 
to  get  much  ;  indeed,  by  requiring  too  much,  they  would 
get  nothing.  Despair  would  baffle  rapacity.  It  is  also  to 
be  conceded,  that  the  proportion  once  fixed  must  remain 
fixed.  This,  ancient  writers  inform  us,  was  the  case.  Now, 
as  the  Spartans  were  a  body  continually  diminishing,  their 
power  to  extort  must  have  declined  with  their  numbers. 
Time  also  must  have  made  great  changes  in  the  value  of  the 
rents,  though  payable  in  kind.  Accordingly,  we  are  told, 
that  most  of  the  Spartan  families  fell  into  poverty,  and  many 
of  the  Helots  became  very  rich.  Their  rise  to  some  share 
of  political  and  personal  importance  was  the  necessary  con 
sequence. 

IT  was  only  one  hundred  and  thirty  years  after  Lycurgus, 
that  the  operation  of  these  principles  was  made  manifest, 
and  their  progress  accelerated,  by  the  establishment  of  the 
ephori.  These  five  annual  magistrates  resembled  the  Ro 
man  tribunes  of  the  people,  were  elected  by  the  mass  of  the 
nation,  and  in  fact  were  often  selected  from  the  dregs  of  the 
people.  At  first  their  power  and  their  pretensions  were 
moderate  ;  but,  as  the  aristocracy  continued  to  decline,  and 
the  democracy,  whose  favourites  and  champions  they  were, 
made  haste  to  raise  itself,  they  gradually  subverted  the 
original  system  of  the  government,  and  engrossed  its  powers. 


456  THE  INSTITUTIONS 

They  deposed  kings,  and  exercised  the  functions  of  sove 
reignty  themselves. 

HENCE  it  is,  that  all  antiquity  bewails  the  cfecay  of  Spartan 
virtue.  The  citizens  had  not  declined  from  virtue,  for  the 
Spartan  morals  were  ever  bad  ;  but  the  aristocracy  had  fallen 
from  power.  Polybius  assures  us,  that  the  institutions  of 
Lycurgus  were  admirably  adapted  to  Sparta,  while  it  was 
content  to  remain  a  small  state,  and  refrained  from  ambitious 
wars  to  conquer  Greece  and  Asia.  Their  degeneracy  is 
dated  from  the  time  when  Lysander  took  Athens,  and  when 
Agesilaus  made  his  expedition  against  the  Persian  king. 
Sparta  was  then  filled  with  rich  spoils,  and  corruption  enter 
ed,  they  say,  with  riches.  The  labouring  classes  had  always 
loved  property,  but  were  deprived,  as  much  as  possible,  by 
Lycurgus  of  all  chances  to  amass  it.  The  governing  class 
had  not,  until  these  wars,  enjoyed  many  opportunities  to  get 
it,  nor  had  it  then  become  an  object  of  personal  influence  and 
consideration. 

BUT  too  much  influence  seems  to  be  allowed  to  these  vic 
tories.  In  a  very  early  age,  the  Lacedaemonians,  after  an 
obstinate  and  long  protracted  contest,  had  subdued  Messene, 
a  state  little  less  considerable  than  their  own,  and  made 
slaves  of  the  people.  The  property  was  the  booty  of  the 
conquerors  ;  yet  they  maintained  their  laws  for  many  hun 
dred  years  after  that  event.  The  Romans  were  conquerors 
from  the  days  of  Romulus,  if  we  except  the  peaceful  reign 
of  Numa  ;  yet  the  greatest  boasts  of  Roman  simplicity  and 
virtue,  of  love  of  country  and  contempt  of  wealth,  are  made 
in  the  very  crisis  of  their  most  dangerous  wars  with  Pyrrhus 
and  the  Samnites,  which  gave  them  the  dominion  of  Italy. 

HAD  the  Lacedaemonians  abstained  from  wars  of  ambition, 
they  would  have  changed,  or,  as  it  is  the  fashion  to  term  it, 
degenerated.  The  wars  of  Lysander  and  Agesilaus  furnish 
ed  the  occasions,  but  were  not  the  causes  of  the  change. 
When  property  and  power,  once  a  Spartan  monopoly,  had 
passed  into  other  hands,  the  change  was  inevitable. 


OF  LYCURGUS.  457 

SPARTAN  equality  has  been  the  everlasting  boast  of  decla 
mation.  It  was  not  Lycurgus's  view  to  make  his  nobles  bet 
ter,  but  to  raise  them  higher  than  other  men  ;  and  that  they 
might  to  the  end  of  time  be  sustained  at  that  point  of  eleva 
tion,  he  contrived  to  sink  all  other  classes  to  servitude  or 
insignificance.  The  nobles  were  a  sort  of  perpetual  garri 
son  for  Sparta.  Lycurgus  did  not  intend  to  train  all  the 
inhabitants  to  be  nobles. 

HAVING  made  this  accurate  distinction  of  orders  in  the 
state,  and  removed,  as  far  as  human  wisdom  could  do  it,  all 
the  causes  that  might  revive  their  rivalships  and  struggles, 
he  may  be  pronounced  the  friend  of  the  independence  and 
of  the  tranquillity  of  his  country,  but  without  excessive  absur 
dity,  he  cannot  be  allowed  to  be  the  founder  of  equal  liberty. 
The  Lacedaemonians  had  all  the  liberty,  and  most  of  the  vir 
tues  and  vices  of  a  camp,  which  is  always  quiet,  and  gene 
rally  has  reason  to  be,  as  long  as  subordination  is  maintained. 

Is  it  wonderful,  then,  that  a  state,  thus  admirably  organ 
ized  for  its  own  peculiar  purposes,  was  able,  for  so  many 
centuries,  to  preserve  itself  unsubdued  by  its  hostile  neigh 
bours  ?  or  that  the  aristocracy,  who  engrossed  all  political 
power,  as  well  as  the  command  of  armies,  should  be  able  so 
long  to  hinder  the  excluded  orders  of  the  state  from  obtain 
ing  a  share  in  the  government  of  it  ? 


58 


£    458    ] 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

A1  EW  speculative  subjects  have  exercised  the  passions 
more  or  the  judgment  less,  than  the  inquiry,  what  rank  our 
country  is  to  maintain  in  the  world  for  genius  and  literary 
attainments.  Whether  in  point  of  intellect  we  are  equal  to 
Europeans,  or  only  a  race  of  degenerate  Creoles ;  whether 
our  artists  and  authors  have  already  performed  much  and 
promise  every  thing  ;  whether  the  muses,  like  the  nightin 
gales,  are  too  delicate  to  cross  the  salt  water,  or  sicken  and 
mope  without  song,  if  they  do,  are  themes  upon  which  we 
Americans  are  privileged  to  be  eloquent  and  loud.  It  might, 
ind  -ed,  occur  to  our  discretion,  that,  as  the  only  admissible 
proof  of  literary  excellence  is  the  measure  of  its  effects,  our 
national  claims  ought  to  be  abandoned  as  worthless  the  mo 
ment  they  are  found  to  need  asserting. 

NEVERTHELESS,  by  a  proper  spirit  and  constancy  in  prais 
ing  ourselves,  it  seems  to  be  supposed,  the  doubtful  title  of  our 
vanity  may  be  quieted,  in  the  same  manner  ash  was  once  be 
lieved,  the  currency  of  the  continental  paper  could,  by  a  uni 
versal  agreement,  be  established  at  par  with  specie.  Yet, 
such  was  the  unpatriotick  perverseness  of  our  citizens,  they 
preferred  the  gold  and  silver  for  no  better  reason  than  be 
cause  the  paper  bills  were  not  so  good.  And  now  it  may 
happen,  that,  from  spite  or  envy,  from  want  of  attention  or 
the  want  of  our  sort  of  information,  foreigners  will  dispute 
the  claims  of  our  pre-eminence  in  genius  and  literature,  not 
withstanding  the  great  convenience  and  satisfaction  we  should 
find  in  their  acquiescence. 

IN  this  unmanageable  temper  or  indocile  ignorance  of 
Europe,  we  may  be  under  the  harsh  necessity  of  submitting 
our  pretensions  to  a  scrutiny  ;  and,  as  the  world  will  judge  of 
the  matter  with  none  of  our  partiality,  it  may  be  discreet  to 


.     AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  459 

anticipate  that  judgment,  and  to  explore  the  grounds  upon 
which,  it  is  probable,  the  aforesaid  world  will  frame  it.  And 
after  all  we  should  suffer  more  pain  than  loss,  if  we  should 
in  the  erent  be  stripped  of  all  that  does  not  belong  to  us  ; 
and,  especially,  if  by  a  better  knowledge  of  ourselves  we 
should  gain  that  modesty,  which  is  the  first  evidence,  and, 
perhaps,  the  last  of  a  real  improvement.  For  no  man  is  less 
likely  to  increase  his  knowledge  than  the  coxcomb,  who 
fancies  he  has  already  learned  out.  An  excessive  national 
vanity,  as  it  is  the  sign  of  mediocrity,  if  not  of  barbarism, 
is  one  of  the  greatest  impediments  to  knowledge. 

IT  will  be  Useless  and  impertinent  to  say,  a  greater  pro 
portion  of  our  citizens  have  had  instruction  in  schools,  than 
can  be  found  in  any  European  state.  It  may  be  true,  that 
neither  France  nor  England  can  boast  of  so  large  a  portion 
of  their  population,  who  can  read  and  write,  and  who  are 
versed  in  the  profitable  mystery  of  the  rule  of  three.  This 
is  not  the  footing  upon  which  the  inquiry  is  to  proceed. 
The  question  is  not,  what  proportion  are  stone  blind,  or 
how  many  can  see,  when  the  sun  shines,  but  what  geniuses 
have  arisen  among  us,  like  the  sun  and  stars  to  shed  life 
and  splendour  on  our  hemisphere. 

THIS  state  of  the  case  is  no  sooner  made,  than  all  the  fire 
fly  tribe  of  our  authors  perceive  their  little  lamps  go  out  of 
themselves,  like  the  flame  of  a  candle  when  lowered  into  the 
mephitick  vapour  of  a  well.  Excepting  the  writers  of  two  able 
works  on  our  politicks,  we  have  no  authors.  To  enter  the  lists 
in  single  combat  against  Hector,  the  Greeks  did  not  offer 
the  lots  to  the  nameless  rabble  of  their  soldiery  ;  all  eyes 
were  turned  upon  Agamemnon  and  Ajax,  upon  Diomed 
and  Ulysses.  Shall  we  match  Joel  Barlow  against  Homer 
or  Hesiod  ?  Can  Thomas  Paine  contend  against  Plato  ?  Or 
could  Findley's  history  of  his  own  insurrection  vie  with  Sal- 
lust's  narrative  of  Catiline's  ?  There  is  no  scarcity  of  spel 
ling-book-makers,  and  authors  of  twelve  cent  pamphlets  ;  and 
we  have  a  distinguished  few,  a  sort  of  literary  nobility,  whose 


460  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

works  have  grown  to  the  dignity  and  size  of  an  octavo  volume. 
We  have  many  writers,  who  have  read,  and  who  have  the 
sense  to  understand  what  others  have  written.  But  a  right 
perception  of  the  genius  of  others  is  not  genius  :  it  is  a  sort 
of  business  talent,  and  will  not  be  wanting  where  there  is 
much  occasion  for  its  exercise.  Nobody  will  pretend,  that 
the  Americans  are  a  stupid  race  ;  nobody  will  deny,  that  we 
justly  boast  of  many  able  men,  and  exceedingly  useful  publica 
tions.  But  has  our  country  produced  one  great  original 
work  of  genius  ?  If  we  tread  the  sides  of  Parnassus,  we  do 
not  climb  its  heights  :  we  even  creep  in  our  path,  by  the  light 
that  European  genius  has  thrown  upon  it.  Is  there  one 
luminary  in  our  firmament  that  shines  with  unborrowed  ray  s  ? 
Do  we  reflect,  how  many  constellations  blend  their  beams  in 
the  history  of  Greece,  which  will  appear  bright  to  the  end  of 
time,  like  the  path  of  the  zodiack,  bespangled  with  stars. 

IF,  then,  we  judge  of  the  genius  of  our  nation  by  the  suc 
cess  with  which  American  authors  have  displayed  it,  our 
country  has  certainly  hitherto  no  pretensions  to  literary 
fame.  The  world  will  naturally  enough  pronounce  its  opin 
ion,  that  what  we  have  not  performed  we  are  incapable  of 
performing. 

IT  is  not  intended  to  proceed  in  stripping  our  country's 
honours  off,  till  every  lover  of  it  shall  turn  with  disgust  from 
the  contemplation  of  its  nakedness.  Our  honours  have  not 
faded — they  have  not  been  worn.  Genius,  no  doubt,  exists 
in  our  country,  but  it  exists,  like  the  unbodied  soul  on  the 
stream  of  Lethe,  unconscious  of  its  powers,  till  the  causes 
to  excite  and  the  occasions  to  display  it  shall  happen  to 
concur. 

WHAT  were  those  causes,  that  have  for  ever  consecrated 
the  name  of  Greece  ?  We  are  sometimes  answered,  she  owes 
her  fame  to  the  republican  liberty  of  her  states.  But  Homer, 
and  Hesiod,  to  say  nothing  of  Linus,  Orpheus,  Musaeus,  and 
many  others,  wrote  while  kings  governed  those  states.  Ana- 
creon  and  Simonides  flourished  in  the  court  of  Pisistratus,  who 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  461 

bad  overthrown  the  democracy  of  Athens.  Nor,  we  may  add 
in  corroboration,  did  Roman  genius  flourish,  till  the  repub- 
lick  fell.  France  and  England  are  monarchies,  and  they 
have  excelled  all  modern  nations  by  their  works  of  genius. 
Hence  we  have  a  right  to  conclude,  the  form  of  government 
has  not  a  decisive,  and  certainly  not  an  exclusive  influence 
on  the  literary  eminence  of  a  people. 

IF  climate  produces  genius,  how  happens  it,  that  the  great 
men  who  reflected  such  honour  on  their  country  appeared 
only  in  the  period  of  a  few  hundred  years  before  the  death 
of  Alexander  ?  The  melons  and  figs  of  Greece  are  still  as 
fine  as  ever ;  but  where  are  the  Pindars  ? 

IN  affairs  that  concern  morals,  we  consider  the  approbation 
of  a  man's  own  conscience  as  more  precious  than  all  human 
rewards.  But,  in  the  province  of  the  imagination,  the  applause 
of  others  is  of  all  excitements  the  strongest.  This  excitement 
is  the  cause  ;  excellence,  the  effect.  When  every  thing  con 
curs,  and  in  Greece  every  thing  did  concur,  to  augment  its 
power,  a  nation  wakes  at  once  from  the  sleep  of  ages.  It  would 
seem  as  if  some  Minerva,  some  present  divinity,  inhabited 
her  own  temple  in  Athens,  and  by  flashing  light  and  work 
ing  miracles  had  conferred  on  a  single  people,  and  almost  on 
a  single  age  of  that  people,  powers  that  are  denied  to  other 
men  and  other  times.  The  admiration  of  posterity  is  excited 
and  overstrained  by  an  effulgence  of  glory,  as  much  beyond 
our  comprehension  as  our  emulation.  The  Greeks  seem  to 
us  a  race  of  giants,  Titans,  the  rivals,  yet  the  favourites  of 
their  gods.  We  think  their  apprehension  was  quicker,  their 
native  taste  more  refined,  their  prose  poetry,  their  poetry 
musick,  their  musick  enchantment.  We  imagine  they  had 
more  expression  in  their  faces,  more  grace  in  their  move 
ments,  more  sweetness  in  the  tones  of  conversation  than  the 
moderns.  Their  fabulous  deities  are  supposed  to  have  left 
their  heaven  to  breathe  the  fragrance  of  their  groves,  and 
to  enjoy  the  beauty  of  their  landscapes.  The  monuments  of 
heroes  must  have  excited  to  heroism ;  and  the  fountains, 


462  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

which  the  muses  had  chosen  for  their  purity,  imparted  in 
spiration. 

IT  is,  indeed,  almost  impossible  to  contemplate  the  bright 
ages  of  Greece,  without  indulging  the  propensity  to  enthu 
siasm. 

WE  are  ready  to  suspect  the  delusion  of  our  feelings,  and 
to  ascribe  its  fame  to  accident,  or  to  causes  which  have  spent 
their  force.  Genius,  we  imagine,  is  for  ever  condemned  to 
inaction  by  having  exhausted  its  power,  as  well  as  the  subjects 
upon  which  it  has  displayed  itself.  Another  Homer  or  Vir 
gil  could  only  copy  the  Iliad  and  Jineid  ;  and  can  the  se 
cond  poets,  from  cinders  and  ashes,  light  such  a  fire  as  still 
glows  in  the  writings  of  the  first.  Genius,  it  will  be  said, 
like  a  conflagration  on  the  mountains,  consumes  its  fuel  in  its 
flame.  Not  so — It  is  a  spark  of  elemental  fire  that  is  un 
quenchable,  the  contemporary  of  this  creation,  and  destined 
with  the  human  soul  to  survive  it.  As  well  might  the  stars 
of  heaven  be  said  to  expend  their  substance  by  their  lustre. 
It  is  to  the  intellectual  world  what  the  electrick  fluid  is  to 
nature,  diffused  every  where,  yet  almost  every  where  hid 
den,  capable  by  its  own  mysterious  laws  of  action  and  by  the 
very  breath  of  applause,  that  like  the  unseen  wind  excites  it, 
of  producing  effects  that  appear  to  transcend  all  power,  ex 
cept  that  of  some  supernatural  agent  riding  in  the  whirlwind. 
In  an  hour  of  calm  we  suddenly  hear  its  voice,  and  are  moved 
with  the  general  agitation.  It  smites,  astonishes,  and  con 
founds,  and  seems  to  kindle  half  the  firmament. 

IT  may  be  true,  that  some  departments  in  literature  are 
so  filled  by  the  ancients,  that  there  is  no  room  for  modern 
excellence  to  occupy.  Homer  wrote  soon  after  the  heroick 
ages,  and  the  fertility  of.  the  soil  seemed  in  some  measure  to 
arise  from  its  freshness  :  it  had  never  borne  a  crop.  Another 
Iliad  would  not  be  undertaken  by  a  true  genius,  nor  equally 
interest  this  age,  if  he  executed  it.  But  it  will  not  be  correct 
to  say,  the  field  is  reduced  to  barrenness  from  having  been 
over-cropped.  Men  have  still  imagination  and  passions,  and 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  463 

they  can  be  excited.  The  same  causes  that  made  Greece 
famous,  would,  if  they  existed  here,  quicken  the  clods  of  our 
vallies,  and  make  our  Bocotia  sprout  and  blossom  like  their 
Attica. 

IN  analyzing  genius  and  considering  how  it  acts,  it  will  be 
proper  to  inquire,  how  it  is  acted  upon.  It  feels  the  power 
it  exerts,  and  its  emotions  are  contagious,  because  they  are 
fervid  and  sincere.  A  single  man  may  sit  alone  and  medi 
tate,  till  he  fancies  he  is  under  no  influence  but  that  of  reason. 
Even  in  this  opinion,  however,,  he  will  allow  too  little  for  pre 
judice  and  imagination  ;  and  still  more  must  be  allowed  when 
he  goes  abroad  and  acts  in  the  world.  But  masses  and  socie 
ties  of  men  are  governed  by  their  passions. 

THE  passion  that  acts  the  strongest,  when  it  acts  at  all,  is 
fear ;  for,  in  its  excess,  it  silences  all  reasoning  and  all  other 
passions.  But  that  which  acts  with  the  greatest-  force,  be 
cause  it  acts  with  the  greatest  constancy,  is  the  desire  of 
consideration.  There  are  very  few  men  who  are  greatly 
deceived  with  respect  to  their  own  measure  of  sense  and 
abilities,  or  who  are  much  dissatisfied  on  that  account ;  but 
we  scarcely  see  any  who  are  quite  at  case  about  the  estimate 
that  other  people  make  of  them.  Hence  it  is,  that  the  great 
business  of  mankind  is  to  fortify  or  create  claims  to  general 
regard.  Wealth  procures  respect,  and  more  wealth  would 
procure  more  respect.  The  man  who,  like  Midas,  turns  all 
he  touches  into  gold,  who  is  oppressed  and  almost  buried  in 
its  superfluity,  who  lives  to  get,  instead  of  getting  to  live, 
and  at  length  belongs  to  his  own  estate  and  is  its  greatest 
incumbrance,  still  toils  and  contrives  to  accumulate  wealth, 
not  because  he  is  deceived  in  regard  to  his  wants,  but  because 
he  knows  and  feels,  that  one  of  his  wants,  which  is  insatiable, 
is  that  respect  which  follows  its  possession.  After  engross 
ing  all  that  the  seas  and  mountains  conceal,  he  would  be  still 
unsatisfied,  and  with  some  good  reason,  for  of  the  treasures 
of  esteem  who  can  ever  have  enough?  Who  would  mar  or 
renounce  one  half  his  reputation  in  the  world  ? 


464  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

AT  different  tinges,  the  opinions  of  men  in  the  same  coun 
try  will  vary  with  regard  to  the  objects  of  prime  considera 
tion,  and  in  different  countries  there  will  ever  be  a  great 
difference  ;  but  that  which  is  the  first  object  of  regard  will 
be  the  chief  object  of  pursuit.  Men  will  be  most  excited  to 
excel  in  that  department  which  offers  to  excellence  the 
highest  reward  in  the  respect  and  admiration  of  mankind.  It 
was  this  strongest  of  all  excitements  that  stimulated  the  lite 
rary  ages  of  Greece. 

IN  the  heroick  times,  it  is  evident,  violence  and  injustice 
prevailed.  The  state  of  society  was  far  from  tranquil  or 
safe.  Indeed,  the  traditional  fame  of  the  heroes  and  demi 
gods  is  founded  on  the  gratitude  that  was  due  for  their 
protection  against  tyrants  and  robbers.  Thucy elides  tells 
us,  that  companies  of  travellers  were  often  asked,  whether 
they  were  thieves.  Greece  was  divided  into  a  great  number 
of  states,  all  turbulent,  all  martial,  always  filled  with  emula 
tion,  and  often  with  tumult  and  blood.  The  laws  of  war 
were  far  more  rigorous  than  they  are  at  present.  Each  state, 
and  each  citizen  in  the  state,  contended  for  all  that  is  dear  to 
man.  If  victors,  they  despoiled  their  enemies  of  every  thing  ; 
the  property  was  booty,  and  the  people  were  made  slaves, 
Such  was  the  condition  of  the  Helots  and  Messenians  under 
the  yoke  of  Sparta.  There  was  every  thing,  then,  both  of 
terrour  and  ignominy  to  rouse  the  contending  states  to  make 
every  effort  to  avoid  subjugation. 

THE  fate  of  Piatsea,  a  city  that  was  besieged  and  taken  by 
the  Spartans,  and  whose  citizens  were  massacred  in  cold 
blood,  affords  a  terrible  illustration  of  this  remark.  The 
celebrated  siege  of  Troy  is  an  instance  more  generally 
known,  and  no  less  to  the  purpose.  With  what  ardent  love 
and  enthusiasm  the  Trojans  viewed  their  Hector,  and  the 
Greeks  their  Ajax  and  Achilles,  is  scarcely  to  be  conceived. 
It  cannot  be  doubted,  that  to  excel  in  arms  was  the  first  of 
all  claims  to  the  popular  admiration. 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  465 

NOR  can  it  escape  observation,  tkat  in  times  of  extreme  clan 
ger  the  internal  union  of  a  state  would  be  most  perfect.  In 
these  days  we  can  have  no  idea  of  the  ardour  of  ancient 
patriotism.  A  society  of  no  great  extent  was  knit  together 
like  one  family  by  the  ties  of  love,  emulation,  and  enthusiasm. 
Fear,  the  strongest  of  all  passions,  operated  in  the  strongest  of 
all  ways.  Hence  we  find,  that  the  first  traditions  of  all  nations 
concern  the  champions  who  defended  them  in  war. 

THIS  universal  state  of  turbulence  and  danger,  while  it 
would  check  the  progress  of  the  accurate  sciences,  would 
greatly  extend  the  dominion  of  the  imagination.  It  would  be 
deemed  of  more  importance,  to  rouse  or  command  the  feel 
ings  of  men,  than  to  augment  or  correct  their  knowledge. 

IN  this  period  it  might  be  supposed,  that  eloquence  display 
ed  its  power ;  but  this  was  not  the  case.  Views  of  refined 
policy  and  calculations  of  remote  consequences  were  not  adapt 
ed  to  the  taste  or  capacity  of  rude  warriours,  who  did  not  rea 
son  at  all,  or  only  reasoned  from  their  passions.  The  business 
was  not  to  convince,  but  to  animate  ;  and  this  was  accomplish 
ed  by  poetry.  It  was  enough  to  inspire  the  poet's  enthusiasm, 
to  know  beforehand,  that  his  nation  would  partake  it. 

ACCORDINGLY,  the  bard  was  considered  as  the  interpreted1 
and  favourite  of  the  gods.  His  strains  were  received  with 
equal  rapture  and  reverence  as  the  effusions  of  an  immediate 
inspiration.  They  were  made  the  vehicles  of  their  traditions  to 
diffuse  and  perpetuate  the  knowledge  of  memorable  events  and 
illustrious  men. 

WE  grossly  mistake  the  matter,  if  we  suppose,  that  poetry 
was  received  of  old  with  as  much  apathy  as  it  is  at  the  present 
day.  Books  are  now  easy  of  access  ;  and  literary  curiosity  suf 
fers  oftener  from  repletion  than  from  hunger.  National  events 
slip  from  the  memory  to  our  records  :  they  miss  the  heart, 
though  they  are  sure  to  reach  posterity. 

IT  was  not  thus  the  Grecian  chiefs  listened  to  Phemius  or 
Demodocus,  the  bards  mentioned  by  Homer.    It  was  not  thus 
that  Homer's  immortal  verse  was  received  by  his  country 
men.  The  thrones,  of  Priam  and  Agamemnon  were  both  long 
59 


466  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

ago  subverted  ;  their  kingdoms  and  those  of  their  conquerors 
have  long  since  disappeared,  and  left  no  wreck  nor  memorial 
behind  ;  but  the  glory  of  Homer  has  outlived  his  country  and 
its  language,  and  will  remain  unshaken  like  Teneriffe  or  Atlas, 
the  ancestor  of  history  and  the  companion  of  time  to  the  end 
of  his  course.  O  !  had  he  in  his  lifetime  enjoyed,  though  in 
imagination,  but  a  glimpse  of  his  own  glory,  would  it  not  have 
swelled  his  bosom  with  fresh  enthusiasm,  and  quickened  all 
his  powers  ?  What  will  not  ambition  do  for  a  crown  ?  and 
what  crown  can  vie  with  Homer's. 

THOUGH  the  art  of  alphabetick  writing  was  known  in  the 
East  in  the  time  of  the  Trojan  war,  it  is  no  where  mentioned 
by  Homer,  who  is  so  exact  and  full  in  describing  all  the  arts 
he  knew.  If  his  poems  were  in  writing,  the  copies  were  few ; 
and  the  knowledge  of  them  was  diffused,  not  by  reading,  but 
by  the  rhapsodists,  who  made  it  a  profession  to  recite  his 
verses. 

POETRY,  of  consequence,  enjoyed  in  that  age,  in  respect  to 
the  vivacity  of  its  impressions,  and  the  significance  of  the 
applauses  it  received,  as  great  advantages  as  have  ever  since 
belonged  to  the  theatre.  Instead  of  a  cold  perusal  in  a  closet, 
or  a  still  colder  confinement,  unread,  in  a  bookseller's  shop,  the 
poet  saw  with  delight  his  work  become  the  instructer  of  the 
wise,  the  companion  of  the  brave  and  the  great.  Alexander 
locked  up  the  Iliad  in  the  precious  cabinet  of  Darius,  as  a 
treasure  of  more  value  than  the  spoils  of  the  king  of  Persia. 

BUT  though  Homer  contributed  so  much  and  so  early  to  fix 
the  language,  to  refine  the  taste,  and_  inflame  the  imagination 
of  the  Greeks,  his  work,  by  its  very  excellence,  seems  to  have 
quenched  the  emulation  of  succeeding  poets  to  attempt  the 
epick.  It  was  not  till  long  after  his  age,  and  by  very  slow 
degrees,  that  JEschylus,  Sophocles,  and  Euripides  carried  the 
tragick  art  to  its  perfection. 

FOR  many  hundred  years  there  seems  to  have  been  no  other 
literary  taste,  and,  indeed,  no  other  literature  than  poetry. 
When  there  was  so  much  to  excite  and  reward  genius,  as  no 
rival  to  Homer  appeared,  it  is  a  clear  proof,  that  nature  did  not 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE,  4G7 

produce  one.  We  look  back  on  the  history  of  Greece,  and 
the  names  of  illustrious  geniuses  thicken  on  the  page,  like  the 
stars  that  seem  to  sparkle  in  clusters  in  the  sky.  But  if  with 
Homer's  own  spirit  we  could  walk  the  milky-way,  we  should 
find,  that  regions  of  unmeasured  space  divide  the  bright  lumi 
naries  that  seem  to  be  so  near.  It  is  no  reproach  to  the  genius 
of  America,  if  it  does  not  produce  ordinarily  such  men  us  were 
deemed  the  prodigies  of  the  ancient  world.  Nature  has  pro 
vided  for  the  propagation  of  men — giants  are  rare  ;  and  it  is 
forbidden  by  her  laws,  that  there  should  be  races  of  them. 

IF  the  genius  of  men  could  have  stretched  to  the  giant's 
size,  there  was  every  thing  in  Greece  to  nourish  its  growth 
and  invigorate  its  force.  After  the  time  of  Homer,  the  Olym- 
pick  and  other  games  were  established.  All  Greece,  assembled 
by  its  deputies,  beheld  the  contests  of  wit  and  valour,  and  saw 
statues  and  crowns  adjudged  to  the  victors,  who  contended  for 
the  glory  of  their  native  cities  as  well  as  for  their  own.  To  us 
it  may  seem,  that  a  handful  of  laurel  leaves  was  a  despicable 
prize.  But  what  were  the  agonies,  what  the  raptures  of  the 
contending  parties,  we  may  read,  but  we  cannot  conceive. 
That  reward,  which  writers  are  now  little  excited  to  merit, 
because  it  is  doubtful  and  distant,  "  the  estate  which  wits 
inherit  after  death,"  was  in  Greece  a  present  possession.  That 
publick  so  terrible  by  its  censure,  so  much  more  terrible  by 
its  neglect,  was  then  assembled  in  person,  and  the  happy  genius 
who  was  crowned  victor  was  ready  to  expire  with  the  trans 
ports  of  his  joy. 

THERE  is  reason  to  believe,  that  poetry  was  more  cultivated 
in  those  early  ages  than  it  evei1  has  been  since.  The  great 
celebrity  of  the  only  two  epick  poems  of  antiquity,  was  owing 
to  the  peculiar  circumstances  of  the  ages  in  which  Homer  and 
Virgil  lived  ;  and  without  the  concurrence  of  those  circum 
stances  their  reputation  would  have  been  confined  to  the 
closets  of  scholars,  without  reaching  the  hearts  and  kindling 
the  fervid  enthusiasm  of  the  multitude.  Homer  wrote  of  war 
to  heroes  and  their  followers,  to  men,  who  felt  the  military 
passion  stronger  than  the  love  of  life  ;  Virgil?  with  art  at  least 


468  AMERICAN  LITERATURE, 

equal  to  his  genius,  addressed  his  poem  to  Romans,  who  loved 
their  countiy  with  sentiment,  with  passion,  with  fanaticism.  It 
is  scarcely  possible,  that  a  modern  epick  poet  should  find  a 
subject  that  would  take  such  hold  of  the  heart,  for  no  such 
subject  worthy  of  poetry  exists.  Commerce  has  supplanted 
war,  as  the  passion  of  the  multitude  ;  and  the  arts  have  divided 
and  contracted  the  objects  of  pursuit.  Societies  are  no  longer 
under  the  power  of  single  passions,  that  once  flashed  enthusi 
asm  through  them  all  at  once  like  electricity.  Now  the  pro 
pensities  of  mankind  balance  and  neutralize  each  other,  and,  of 
course,  narrow  the  range  in  which  poetry  used  to  move.  Its 
coruscations  are  confined,  like  the  northern  light,  to  the  polar 
circle  of  trade  and  politicks,  or,  like  a  transitory  meteor,  blaze 
in  a  pamphlet  or  magazine. 

THE  time  seems  to  be  near,  and,  perhaps,  is  already  arrived, 
when  poetry,  at  least  poetry  of  transcendent  merit,  will  be  con 
sidered  among  the  lost  arts.  It  is  a  long  time  since  England 
lias  produced  a  first  rate  poet.  If  America  has  not  to  boast  at 
all  what  our  parent  country  boasts  no  longer,  it  will  not  be 
thought  a  proof  of  the  deficiency  of  our  genius. 

IT  is  a  proof  that  the  ancient  literature  was  wholly  occupied 
by  poetry,  that  we  are  without  the  works,  and,  indeed,  without 
the  names  of  any  other  very  ancient  authors  except  poets. 
Herodotus  is  called  the  father  of  history  ;  and  he  lived  and' 
wrote  between  four  and  five  hundred  years  after  Homer. 
Thucydides,  it  is  said,  on  hearing  the  applauses  bestowed  at 
the  publick  games  on  the  recital  of  the  work  of  Herodotus, 
though  he  was  then  a  boy,  shed  tears  of  emulation.  He  after 
wards  excelled  his  rival  in  that  species  of  writing. 

EXCELLENT,  however,  as  these  Grecian  histories  will  ever 
be  esteemed,  it  is  somewhat  remarkable,  that  political  science 
never  received  much  acquisition  in  the  Grecian  democracies. 
If  Sparta  should  be  vouched  as  an  exception  to  this  remark, 
it  may  be  replied,  Sparta  was  not  a  democracy.  Lest  that, 
however,  should  pass  for  an  evasion  of  the  point,  it  may  be 
further  answered,  the  constitution  of  Lycurgus  seems  to  have 
teen  adapted  to  Sparta  rather  as  a  camp  than  a  society  of  citi- 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  469 

zens.  His  whole  system  is  rather  a  body  of  discipline  than  of 
laws,  whose  sole  object  it  was,  not  to  refine  manners  or  extend 
knowledge,  but  to  provide  for  the  security  of  the  camfi.  The 
citizens,  with  whom  any  portion  of  political  power  was  en 
trusted,  were  a  military  cast  or  class ;  and  the  rigour  of  Ly- 
curgus's  rules  and  articles  was  calculated  and  intended  to  make 
them  superiour  to  all  other  soldiers.  The  same  strictness,  that 
for  so  long  a  time  preserved  the  Spartan  government,  secures 
the  subordination  and  tranquillity  of  modern  armies.  Sparta  was, 
of  course,  no  proper  field  for  the  cultivation  of  the  science  of 
politicks.  Nor  can  we  believe,  that  the  turbulent  democracies 
of  the  neighbouring  states  favoured  the  growth  of  that  kind  of 
knowledge,  since  we  are  certain  it  never  did  thrive  in  Greece. 
How  could  it  be,  that  the  assemblies  of  the  people,  convened 
to  hear  flattery  or  to  lavish  the  publick  treasures  for  plays  and 
shews  to  amuse  the  populace,  should  be  any  more  qualified, 
than  inclined  to  listen  to  political  disquisitions,  and  especially 
to  the  wisdom  and  necessity  of  devising  and  putting  in  opera 
tion  systematical  checks  on  their  own  power,  which  was  threat 
ened  with  ruin  by  its  licentiousness  and  excess,  and  which 
soon  actually  overthrew  it  ?  It  may  appear  bold,  but  truth  and 
history  seem  to  warrant  the  assertion,  that  political  science 
will  never  become  accurate  in  popular  stntes ;  for  in  them  the 
most  salutary  truths  must  be  too  offensive  for  currency  or  in 
fluence. 

IT  may  be  properly  added,  and  in  perfect  consistency  with 
the  theory  before  assumed,  that  fear  is  the  strongest  of  all  pas 
sions,  that  in  democracies  writers  will  be  more  afraid  of  the 
people  than  afraid  for  them.  The  principles  indispensable  to 
liberty  are  not  therefore  to  be  discovered,  or,  if  discovered,  not 
to  be  propagated  and  established  in  such  a  state  of  things.  But 
where  the  chief  magistrate  holds  the  sword,  and  is  the  object  of 
reverence,  if  not  of  popular  fear,  the  direction  of  prejudice  and 
feeling  will  be  changed.  Supposing  the  citizens  to  have  pri 
vileges,  and  to  be  possessed  of  influence,  or,  in  other  wrords,  of 
some  power  in  the  state,  they  will  naturally  wish  so  to  use  the 
power  they  have,  as  to  be  secure  against  the  abuse  of  that 


470  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

which  their  chief  possesses ;  and  this  universal  propensity  of 
the  publick  wishes  will  excite  and  reward  the  genius  that  dis 
covers  the  way  in  which  this  may  be  done.  If  we  know  any 
thing  of  the  true  theory  of  liberty,  we  owe  it  to  the  wisdom, 
or,  perhaps  more  correctly,  to  the  experience  of  those  nations 
whose  publick  sentiment  was  employed  to  check  rather  than 
to  guide  the  government. 

v  IT  is,  then,  little  to  be  expected,  that  American  writers  will 
add  much  to  the  common  stock  of  political  information. 

IT  might  have  been  sooner  remarked,  that  the  dramatick  art 
has  not  afforded  any  opportunities  for  native  writers.  It  is  but 
lately  that  we  have  had  theatres  in  our  cities  ;  and  till  our  cities 
become  large,  like  London  and  Paris,  the  progress  of  taste  will 
be  slow,  and  the  rewards  of  excellence  unworthy  of  the  com 
petitions  of  genius. 

NOR  will  it  be  charged  as  a  mark  of  our  stupidity,  that  we 
have  produced  nothing  in  history.  Our  own  is  not  yet  worthy 
of  a  Livy  ;  and  to  write  that  of  any  foreign  nation  where  could 
an  American  author  collect  his  materials  and  authorities  ? 
Few  persons  reflect,  that  all  our  universities  would  not  suffice 
to  supply  them  for  such  a  work  as  Gibbon's. 

THE  reasons,  why  we  yet  boast  nothing  in  the  abstruse 
sciences,  are  of  a  different  and  more  various  nature.  Much, 
perhaps  all,  that  has  been  discovered  in  these  is  known  to 
some  of  our  literati.  It  does  not  appear,  that  Europe  is  now 
making  any  advances.  But  to  make  a  wider  diffusion  of 
these  sciences,  and  to  enlarge  their  circle,  would  require  the 
learned  leisure,  which  a  numerous  class  enjoy  in  Europe,  but 
which  cannot  be  enjoyed  in  America.  If  wealth  is  accumu 
lated  by  commerce,  it  is  again  dissipated  among  heirs.  Its 
transitory  nature,  no  doubt,  favours  the  progress  of  luxury  more 
than  the  advancement  of  letters.  It  has  among  us  no  uses  to 
found  families,  to  sustain  rank,  to  purchase  power,  or  to  pen 
sion  genius.  The  objects  on  which  it  must  be  employed  are 
all  temporary,  and  have  more  concern  with  mere  appetite  or 
ostentation  than  with  taste  or  talents.  Our  citizens  have  not 
been  accustomed  to  look  on  rank  or  titles,  on  birth  or  office 


AMERICAN  LITERATURE.  471 

as  capable  of  the  least  rivalship  with  wealth,  mere  wealth,  in 
pretensions  to  respect.  Of  course  the  single  passion  that  en 
grosses  us,  the  only  avenue  to  consideration  and  importance 
in  our  society,  is  the  accumulation  of  property :  our  inclina 
tions  cling  to  gold,  and  are  bedded  in  it  as  deeply  as  that  pre 
cious  ore  in  the  mine.  Covered  as  our  genius  is  in  this  min 
eral  crust,  is  it  strange  that  it  does  not  sparkle  ?  Pressed  down 
to  earth,  and  with  the  weight  of  mountains  on  our  heads,  is  it 
surprising,  that  no  sons  of  ether  yet  have  spread  their  broad 
wings  to  the  sky,  like  Jove's  own  eagle,  to  gaze  undazzled  at 
the  sun,  or  to  perch  on  the  top  of  Olympus  and  partake  the 
banquet  of  the  gods. 

AT  present  the  nature  of  our  government  inclines  all  men 
to  seek  popularity  as  the  object  next  in  point  of  value  to 
wealth  ;  but  the  acquisition  of  learning  and  the  display  of  ge 
nius  are  not  the  ways  to  obtain  it.  Intellectual  superiority  is 
so  far  from  conciliating  confidence,  that  it  is  the  very  spirit  of 
a  democracy,  as  in  France,  to  proscribe  the  aristocracy  of 
talents.  To  be  the  favourite  of  an  ignorant  multitude,  a  man 
must  descend  to  their  level ;  he  must  desire  what  they  desire, 
and  detest  all  that  they  do  not  approve  ;  he  must  yield  to  their 
prejudices,  and  substitute  them  for  principles.  Instead  of  en 
lightening  their  errours,  he  must  adopt  them  ;  he  must  furnish 
the  sophistry  that  will  propagate  and  defend  them. 

SURELY  we  are  not  to  look  for  genius  among  demagogues  : 
the  man  who  can  descend  so  low,  has  seldom  very  far  to  de 
scend.  As  experience  evinces,  that  popularity,  in  other  words, 
consideration  and  power,  is  to  be  procured  by  the  meanest  of 
mankind,  the  meanest  in  spirit  and  understanding,  and  in  the 
worst  of  ways,  it  is  obvious,  that  at  present  the  excitement  to 
genius  is  next  to  nothing.  If  we  had  a  Pindar,  he  would  be 
ashamed  to  celebrate  our  chief,  and  would  be  disgraced,  if  he 
did.  But  if  he  did  not,  his  genius  would  not  obtain  his  elec 
tion  for  a  selectman  in  a  democratick  town.  It  is  party  that 
bestows  emolument,  power,  and  consideration ;  and  it  is  not 
excellence  in  the  sciences  that  obtains  the  suffrages  of  party. 


472  AMERICAN  LITERATURE. 

BUT  the  condition  of  the  United  States  is  changing.  Luxu 
ry  is  sure  to  introduce  want ;  and  the  great  inequalities  be 
tween  the  very  rich  and  the  very  poor  will  be  more  conspicu 
ous,  and  comprehend  a  more  formidable  host  of  the  latter. 
The  rabble  of  great  cities  is  the  standing  army  of  ambition. 
Money  will  become  its  instrument,  and  vice  its  agent.  Every 
step,  and  we  have  taken  many,  towards  a  more  complete,  un 
mixed  democracy  is  an  advance  towards  destruction :  it  is 
treading  where  the  ground  is  treacherous  and  excavated  for 
an  explosion.  Liberty  has  never  yet  lasted  long  in  a  demo 
cracy  ;  nor  has  it  ever  ended  in  any  thing  better  than  despo 
tism.  With  the  change  of  our  government,  our  manners  and 
sentiments  will  change.  As  soon  as  our  emperour  has  de 
stroyed  his  rivals  and  established  order  in  his  army,  he  will 
desire  to  see  splendour  in  his  court,  and  to  occupy  his  subjects 
with  the  cultivation  of  the  sciences. 

IF  this  catastrophe  of  our  publick  liberty  should  be  miracu 
lously  delayed  or  prevented,  still  we  shall  change.  With  the 
augmentation  of  wealth,  there  will  be  an  increase  of  the  num 
bers  who  may  choose  a  literary  leisure.  Literary  curiosity  will 
become' one  of  the  new  appetites  of  the  nation  ;  and  as  luxury 
advances,  no  appetite  will  be  denied.  After  some  ages  we 
shall  have  many  poor  and  a  few  rich,  many  grossly  ignorant,  a 
considerable  number  learned,  and  a  few  eminently  learned. 
Nature,  never  prodigal  of  her  gifts,  will  produce  some  men  of 
genius,  who  will  be  admired  and  imitated. 


C    473     ] 


REVIEW  OF  A  PAMPHLET, 

ENTITLED 

PRESENT  STATE  OF  THE  BRITISH  CONSTITUTION  HISTORICALLY 
ILLUSTRATED.— LONDON,  1807.     pp.  182. 

JL  ROM  the  size  of  this  pamphlet,  and  from  its  title  page,  it 
was  natural  to  expect  profound  investigation  and  accurate  and 
important  results.  The  design  of  the  work  is  announced  with 
uncommon  parade  in  an  introduction  of  sixteen  pages  ;  but  we 
do  not  hesitate  to  say,  these  are  sixteen  pages  too  much  ;  for 
the  object  of  the  writer  is  sufficiently  unfolded  in  what  fol 
lows. 

THE  work  is  divided  into  two  parts.  In  the  first  part,  he 
proposes  to  discuss  the  theory  of  the  British  constitution,  and 
to  examine  how  the  theory  differs  from  the  practice.  This 
part  extends  from  the  seventeenth  to  the  ninety  ninth  page,  in 
clusive.  It  is  very  verbose,  and  contains  nothing  new.  After 
a  long  display  of  old  historical  facts,  which  he  seldom  applies, 
and  which  are  not  always  applicable  to  his  subject,  he  abruptly 
and  unexpectedly  concludes,  that  the  security  of  the  people 
under  the  present  British  constitution  is  owing  to  the  freedom 
of  the  press.  We  confess,  we  have  been  ready  to  prove  the 
remarkable  strength  and  stability  of  that  constitution,  and,  of 
course,  the  security  of  the  people,  by  its  having  stood  so  long 
in  spite  of  the  abuses  of  the  press.  For  where  the  press  is 
free,  it  will  be  abused. 

WE  ARE,  HEART   AND  SOUL,   FRIENDS  TO   THE  FREEDOM  OF 

THE  PRESS.  It  is,  however,  the  prostituted  companion  of  lib 
erty,  and  somehow  or  other,  we  know  not  how,  its  efficient 
auxiliary.  It  follows  the  substance  like  its  shade  ;  but  while  a 
man  walks  erect,  he  may  observe,  that  his  shadow  is  almost 
always  in  the  dirt.  It  corrupts,  it  deceives,  it  inflames.  It 
60 


474  REVIEW  OF 

strips  virtue  of  her  honours,  and  lends  to  faction  its  wildfire 
and  its  poisoned  arms,  and  in  the  end  is  its  own  enemy  and 
the  usurper's  ally.  It  would  be  easy  to  enlarge  on  its  evils. 
They  are  in  England,  they  are  here,  they  are  every  where. 
It  is  a  precious  pest  and  a  necessary  mischief,  and  THERE 

WOULD  BE   NO  LIBERTY   WITHOUT   IT.     We   expected,  that  the 

author  would  have  attempted  profoundly  to  trace  its  useful 
operation  ;  but  he  has  not  done  it ;  and  this  rare  task  remains 
for  some  more  acute  inquirer  into  the  obscure  causes  of  its 
salutary  influence. 

Ix  the  second  part  he  undertakes  to  prove,  that  this  is  the 
great  safeguard  of  that  constitution.     For  this  purpose,  he  re 
sorts  again  to  history.     But  in  the  instances  he   adduces  to 
shew    the    influence    of  a   free  press,    he  only  demonstrates 
the  power  of  publick  opinion.      The  nation  would  have  an 
opinion,  if  it  had  not  a  press  ;  and  that  opinion  would  have 
weight  and  authority.     Before  the  art  of  printing  was  known, 
bad  ministers  were  crushed  by  publick  odium.     The  favour 
ites  of  Edward  the  second  of  England  were  as  effectually  over 
powered  by  it,  as  if  the  press  had  been  used.     The  freedom 
of  the  press  cannot  hinder  its  being  venal.     Had  it  then  exist 
ed,  those  odious  favourites  would  have  used  it  to  palliate  their 
crimes.     They  would  have  bought  the  press  ;  and,  no  doubt, 
they  would  have  been  patriots  in  type,  till  they  were  stripped 
of  the  means  of  corruption  ;  and  then  again  they  would  have 
be£n   odious  monsters.     In  our  time  this  boasted  luminary 
vents  more  smoke  than  light ;  so  that  the  circumstances  of 
transactions  and  the  characters  of  men  are  to  be  clearly  known 
only  by  waiting  for  the  evidence  of  history  in  a  future  age, 
when  it  will  be  of  very  little  comparative  importance,  whether 
the  subject  be  understood  or  mistaken. 

THOUGH  nobody  will  deny  the  influence  of  publick  opinion 
upon  government,  still  it  is  a  distinct  question,  what  is  the 
boasted  salutary  influence  of  the  press  ?  It  might  help  the 
cause  of  truth  and  liberty ;  it  might  produce  as  well  as  gratify 
a  thirst  for  inquiry.  But  who  pretend  to  be  the  instructers  of 


A  PAMPHLET.  475 

the  people  ?  men  who  are  themselves  instructed,  or  needy, 
ignorant  profligates  ?  The  use  of  the  press  must  be  supposed 
to  lie  in  helping  a  nation  to  discern  and  to  judge.  Experience 
seems  to  shew,  that  the  press  makes  every  thing  more  apparent 
than  the  truth  ;  and  by  eternally  pretending  to  judge,  the  pub- 
lick  opinion  is  without  authority  or  influence ;  it  is  counter 
feited  by  fools,  and  perverted  by  knaves.  But  a  plain  people, 
without  a  press,  would  know  oppression,  when  they  felt  it ;  and 
there  is  no  government  which  is  not  supported  by  military 
force;  that  would  disregard  the  complaints  of  an  indignant  na 
tion.  By  the  help  of  the  press  we  see  invisible  things  ;  we 
foresee  evils  in  their  embryo,  and  accumulate  on  the  present 
moment  all  that  is  bitter  in  the  past  or  terrible  in  the  future. 
A  whole  people  are  made  sick  with  the  diseases  of  the  ima 
gination.  They  see  a  monarch  in  Washington,  and  conspirators 
in  their  patriots.  They  turn  their  best  men  out  of  office  on  the 
strength  of  their  suspicions  ;  and  trust  their  worst  men  in  spite 
of  their  knowledge  of  them.  It  is  the  press  that  has  spoiled 
the  temper  of  our  liberty,  and  may  shorten  its  life. 

SfJLL^  ive  refieat,  ive  would  by  no  means  ivish  to  see  the  liber 
ty  of  the  jiress  abridged.  But  how  it  is  that  we  are  dieted  upon 
poisons  and  yet  live,  we  pretend  not  to  say,  nor  has  this  author 
instructed  us. 

FROM  these  deductions  we  venture  to  pronounce,  that  the 
freedom  of  the  press  is  not  the  cause  of  the  security  of  the 
British  people  or  of  the  duration  of  their  constitution.  It  is  not 
our  business  to  make  a  theory,  but  only  to  expose  that  of  the 
author,  which  indeed  is  scarcely  worth  confuting.  But  we 
should  think,  that  the  freedom  of  that  constitution  arises  rather 
from  the  distinct  existence  and  political  power  of  three  orders, 
than  from  the  press.  The  press  could  tell  of  oppression,  if  it 
had  happened ;  but  the  lords  and  commons  could  remove  and 
punish  it. 

BUT  though  we  cannot  possibly  discover,  how  the  freedom 
of  the  press  can  secure  the  constitution  of  an  hereditary  gov 
ernment,  we  can  easily  see,  how  in  a  popular  state  the  abuse  of 


476  REVIEW  OF  A  PAMPHLET. 

the  press  may  fortify  a  faction  in  power.  It  is  not  merit,  it  is 
not  wisdom  that  in  such  a  state  can  confer  power ;  it  is  faction 
which  has  an  interest  in  accumulating  wealth  and  privilege 
upon  its  members,  and  persecution  on  its  rivals.  We  know 
a  country,  where  the  press  is  successfully  used  for  the  con 
cealment  of  the  truth.  Newspapers  written  all  on  one  side  are 
read  all  on  one  side ;  and  the  truth  and  argument  of  the  ad 
verse  party  are  as  little  known,  and  have  less  chance  of  being 
understood  by  the  other  than  the  language  of  Hindostan  or  the 
religion  of  Thibet. 


[    477    3 


LETTERS. 


TO    MR.  ******,  AT  SPRINGFIELD. 

PHILADELPHIA,  May  6th,  1794. 
DEAR  FRIEXD, 

Jl  SHOULD  suffer  a  fever  of  the  hypo,  as  severe  as  the 
fever  and  ague,  if  I  could  persuade  myself  congress  would  sit 
here  till  mid-summer.  But  I  think  we  shall  adjourn  in  three 
weeks.  The  heat,  weariness,  a  desire  to  disperse  our  mischief- 
makers,  conspire  to  wind  up  the  session. 

IT  has  been  unusually  painful  and  hazardous  to  peace  and 
good  order.  My  hopes  are,  however,  that  we  shall  escape  the 
threatened  danger,  which  will  coincide  with  the  interests  and 
wishes  of  the  people  and  the  sense  of  a  majority  of  congress. 
Such  are  the  wishes  of  a  majority  of  congress,  although  a 
number  have  been  duped  into  a  support  of  measures  tending 
to  a  war.  The  desperadoes  desire  war  ;  and  I  think  they  would 
get  the  upper  hand  to  manage  a  war.  Whatever  kindles  popu 
lar  passions  into  fury,  gives  strength  to  that  faction.  What 
fine  topicks  for  calumny  would  not  a  war  furnish  ?  A  moderate 
or  honest  man  could  be  stigmatized,  mobbed,  declared  a  sus 
pected  person,  guillotined,  and  his  property  might  be  taken 
for  publick  purposes.  France  might  see  her  bloody  exploits 
rivalled  by  her  pupil,  emulous  of  her  glory. 

WAR  without  anarchy  is  bad  enough  ;  but  would  it  not  also 
bring  the  extreme  of  confusion. 

FEDERAL  men  come  from  the  Northward  to  congress  with 
an  opinion,  that  government  is  as  strong  as  thunder  ;  and  that 
by  coaxing  and  going  half  way  with  certain  Southern  members 
they  might  be  won.  Both  these  opinions  yield  very  soon  to 
the  evidence  of  their  senses.  They  see  government  a  puny 


478  LETTERS. 

thing,  held  up  by  great  exertions  and  greater  good  luck,  and 
assailed  by  a  faction  who  feel  an  inextinguishable  animosity 
against  any  debt-compelling  government,  and  whose  importance 
sinks  as  that  of  equal  laws  rises. 

YESTERDAY  the  senators  from  Virginia  moved  for  lea1  e  to 
bring  in  a  bill,  to  suspend  that  part  of  the  treaty  with  Great 
Britain  which  relates  to  debts.  Thus,  murder  at  last  is  out. 
Norfolk  and  Baltimore  perform  heroick  exploits  in  the  tar  and 
feathers  line.  Here  they  only  dismantled,  by  force,  a  schooner, 
which  five  British  officers,  prisoners  on  parole,  had  got  leave 
to  go  to  England  in,  having  chartered  her.  These  are  violences 
worthy  of  Mohawks.  Compared  with  New-England,  the  mul 
titude  in  these  towns  are  but  half  civilized. 

WILL  our  Yankees  like  a  war  the  better  for  being  mobbed 
into  it,  and  because  also  the  South  will  not  pay  the  British 
debts  ?  Our  people  have  paid ;  and  will  they  pay  in  the  form  of 
war  for  their  Southern  brethren  ?  I  do  not  know,  that  passion 
is  ever  to  be  reasoned  down  ;  but  other  passions  could  be  rea 
soned  up  to  resist  the  prevailing  one.  I  wish  our  newspapers 
were  better  filled  with  paragraphs  and  essays  to  unmask  our 
Catiline  s. 

A  LAND  tax  is  likely  to  be  rejected,  and  the  dislike  to  it  will 
carry  along  indirect  taxes.  While  war  is  an  event  to  be  pro 
vided  against,  the  increase  of  revenue  by  excise  is  an  import 
ant  object. 

*  *  is  as  he  wras  made.  His  foes  will  say,  by  way  of  reproach, 
and  his  friends  by  way  of  vindication,  he  was  born  so. 

I  AM  sorry  for  the  failure  of  the  dam,  and  am  in  hopes  you 
will  profit  by  the  event  to  make  it  the  stronger.  Success 
to  you. 

SPEAK  of  me  to  friends,  as  may  suit  the  sentiments  with 
which  I  am  theirs  and  your's, 

FISHER  AMES. 


,  LETTERS.  *  479 

TO  THE  SAME. 

PHILADELPHIA,  December  12th,  1794. 
MY  DEAR  FRIEND, 

I  THINK  publick  life  has  not  chilled  my  social  attach 
ments,  nor  do  I  see  much  in  it  calculated  to  draw  me  off  from 
them. 

THE  last  session,  the  noise  of  debate  was  more  deafening 
than  a  mill ;  and  this,  excepting  in  one  instance,  maintains  a 
pouting  silence,  an  armed  neutrality,  that  does  not  afford  the 
animation  of  a  conflict,  nor  the  security  of  peace.  We  sleep 
upon  our  arms.  To  sink  the  publick  debt  by  paying  it  seems 
to  be  the  chief  business  to  expedite.  That  will  require  some 
address  to  get  effected,  as  our  anti-funders  are  used  to  a  more 
literal  sinking  of  debts.  To  put  the  debt  in  train  of  being 
paid  off,  would  in  a  measure  disarm  faction  of  a  weapon. 

EVENTS  have  shown  the  falsehood  of  almost  every  antifederal 
doctrine  ;  and  the  time  favours  the  impression  of  truth.  It 
is  made,  and  the  government  stands  on  better  ground  than  it 
ever  did.  But  I  wish  exceedingly,  that  our  sober  citizens  should 
weigh  matters  well.  Faction  is  only  baffled,  not  repenting,  not 
changed.  New  grounds  will  be  found  or  invented  for  stirring 
up  sedition ;  and  unless  the  country  is  now  deeply  sensible  of 
the  late  danger  and  of  the  true  characters  of  our  publick  men, 
new  troubles  will  arise.  Good  fortune  may  turn  her  back  up 
on  us  the  next  time,  and  if  she  had  in  August  last,  this  union 
would  have  been  rent.  Virginia  acted  better  than  could  have 
been  expected  ;  and  the  militia  return  to  all  the  states  full  of 
federalism,  and  will  help  to  diffuse  their  feelings  among  their 
connections.  The  spirit  of  insurrection  had  tainted  a  vast  ex 
tent  of  country,  besides  Pennsylvania ;  and  had  all  the  disaf 
fected,  combined  and  acted  together,  the  issue  would  have 
been  long  protracted,  and  doubtful  at  last. 

WILL  the  people,  seing  this  pit  open,  approach  it  again  by 
sending  those  to  congress  who  led  them  blindfold  to  its  brink 
Some  exertion,  indeed  all  that  can  be  made,  appears  to  me 


480  LETTERS. 

worth  making,  nay  more,  indispensably  necessary,  wherever 
an  and  is  held  up  as  a  candidate.  For,  I  venture  to  speak  as  a 
prophet,  if  they  will  send  insurgents,  they  must  pay  for  rebel 
lions.  This  government  is  utterly  impracticable  for  any  length 
of  time,  with  such  a  resisting  party  to  derange  its  movements. 
The  people  must  interpose  in  the  appointed  way  by  excluding 
mobocrats  from  legislation.  I  have  faith,  that  very  plain  deal 
ing  with  them  would  work  a  change,  even  in  Virginia.  Ought 
not  these  considerations,  which  concern  political  life  and  death, 
to  weigh  down  all  others  in  New-England  ?  Will  not  the  river 
men,  who  are  so  noted  for  good  principles  and  habits,  give 
them  support  in  the  election  which,  I  hear,  is  yet  undecided 
between  general  *******  and  *****. 

I  KNOW,  that  men  breathing  the  air  of  New-England  cannot 
credit  the  state  of  things  in  the  back  country  and  at  the  South. 
They  must  not  judge  of  others  by  themselves.  They  must 
remember,  that  for  preserving  a  free  government  a  supine 
security  is  next  to  treachery.  If  all  New-England  would  move 
in  phalanx,  at  least  we  could  hold  our  posts,  and  a  short  time 
will  work  changes  at  the  South.  Our  good  citizens  must  con 
sent  to  be  more  in  earnest  in  their  politicks,  or  submit  to  be 
less  secure  in  their  rights  and  property. 

YOUR  account  of  thanksgiving  has  almost  made  me  home 
sick — not  a  pumpkin  pye  have  I  seen.  A  Yankee  is  supposed 
to  derive  his  principles  from  his  keeping.  Yet  when  that  is 
changed,  he  must  not  flinch, 

Your't, 

FISHER  AMES. 


TO  THE  SAME. 

PHILADELPHIA,  March  9,  1796. 
MY  DEAR  FRIEND, 

I  SIT  now  in  the  house,  and,  that  I  may  not  lose  my  tem 
per  and  my  spirits,  I  shut  my  ears  against  the  sophisms  and 
rant  against  the  treaty,  and  divert  my  attention  by  writing  to 
you. 


LETTERS.  481 

NEVER  was  a  time  when  I  so  much  desired  the  full  use  of 
my  faculties,  and  it  is  the  very  moment  when  I  am  prohibited 
even  attention.  To  be  silent,  neutral,  useless,  is  a  situation 
not  to  be  envied.  I  almost  wish  *****  was  here,  and  I  at 
home,  sorting  squash  and  pumpkin  seeds  for  planting. 

IT  is  a  new  post  for  me  to  be  in.  I  am  not  a  sentry,  not  in 
the  ranks,  not  in  the  staff.  I  am  thrown  into  the  waggon,  as 
part  of  the  baggage.  I  am  like  an  old  gun,  that  is  spiked  or 
the  trunnions  knocked  off,  and  yet  am  carted  off,  not  for  the 
worth  of  the  old  iron,  but  to  balk  the  enemy  of  a  trophy.  My 
political  life  is  ended,  and  I  am  the  survivor  of  myself,  or 
rather  a  troubled  ghost  of  a  politician,  that  am  condemned  to 
haunt  the  field  of  battle  where  I  fell.  Whether  the  govern 
ment  will  long  outlive  me,  is  doubtful.  I  know  it  is  sick,  and, 
many  of  the  physicians  say,  of  a  mortal  disease.  A  crisis  now 
exists,  the  most  serious  I  ever  witnessed,  and  the  more  dan 
gerous,  because  it  is  not  dreaded.  Yet,  I  confess,  if  we  should 
navigate  the  federal  ship  through  this  strait,  and  get  out  again 
into  the  open  sea,  we  shall  have  a  right  to  consider  the  chance 
of  our  government  as  mended.  We  shall  have  a  lease  for 
years — say  four  or  five ;  not  a  freehold — certainly  not  a  fee 
simple. 

How  will  the  Yankees  feel  and  act1  when  the  day  of  trial 
comes?  It  is  not,  I  fear,  many  weeks  off.  Will  they  let  the 
casuists  quibble  away  the  very  words  and  adulterate  the  genuine 
spirit  of  the  constitution  ?  When  a  measure  passes  by  the  pro 
per  authorities,  shall  it  be  stopped  by  force  ?  Sophistry  may 
change  the  form  of  the  question,  may  hide  some  of  the  conse 
quences,  and  may  dupe  some  into  an  opinion  of  its  moderation 
when  triumphant,  yet  the  fact  will  speak  for  itself.  The  gov 
ernment  cannot  go  to  the  halves.  It  would  be  another,  a  worse 
government,  if  the  mob,  or  the  leaders  of  the  mob  in  congress, 
can  stop  the  lawful  acts  of  the  president,  and  unmake  a  treaty. 
It  would  be  cither  no  government,  or  instantly  a  government 
by  usurpation  and  wrong. 
61 


482  LETTERS. 

MARCH  12th. 

THE  debate  is  yet  unfinished,  and  will  continue  some  days 
longer.  1  beg  you  let  ****  have  the  paper,  after  you  have 
done  with  it. 

I  THINK  we  shall  beat  our  opponents  in  the  end,  but  the 
conflict  will  light  up  a  fierce  war. 

Your  friend, 

FJSHER  AMES. 


TO  MR.  ******,  MEMBER  OF  CONGRESS,  AT  WASHINGTON. 

DEDHAM,  October  26th,  1803. 
MY  DEAR  FRIEND, 

I  HAD  resolved  to  write  to  you,  before  I  received  any 
letter  from  you.  For  a  week  this  scheme  of  merit  has  been 
formed  and  postponed,  till  by  your  esteemed  favour,  with  the 
printed  copy  of  the  message,  it  has  this  day  failed  entirely. 

I  AM  glad  to  hear  of  your  safe,  though  weary,  arrival  at  the 
heaven  of  other  men's  ambition,  your  purgatory,  where,  indeed, 
you  will  see  good  spirits,,  with  other  spirits  conjured  by  democ 
racy  from  the  vasty  deep.  Remember  what  I  have  often  told 
you,  that  the  scene  you  are  entering  upon  will  form  the  best 
characters  and  display  them  to  the  greatest  advantage.  The 
furnace  of  political  adversity  will  separate  the  dross,  but  purify 
the  gold.  You  will  have  the  best  society,  under  circumstances 
to  endear  it  to  you  and  you  to  them.  To  serve  the  people 
successfully,  will  be  out  of  your  power ;  the  attempt  to  do  it 
will  be  unpopular.  To  natter,  inflame,  and  betray  them,  will 
be  the  applauded  work  of  demagogues,  who  will  dig  graves  for 
themselves  and  erect  thrones  for  their  victors,  as  in  France. 

THE  principles  of  democracy  are  every  where  what  they 
have  been  in  France  ;  the  materials  for  them  to  work  upon  are 
not  in  all  places  equally  favourable.  The  fire  of  revolution 
burnt  in  Paris  like  our  New- England  rum,  quick  to  kindle, 
not  to  be  quenched,  and  leaving  only  a  bitter,  nauseous,  spirit 
less  mass.  Our  country  would  burn  like  its  own  swamps,  only 


LETTERS.  483 

after  a  long  drought,  with  much  smoke,  and  little  flame ;  but, 
when  once  kindled,  it  would  burrow  deep  into  the  soil,  search 
out  and  consume  the  roots,  and  leave,  after  one  crop,  a  caput 
mortuum,  black  and  barren,  for  ages.  If  it  should  rain  bless 
ings,  and  keep  our  soil  wet  and  soaking,  it  might  not  take  fire 
in  our  day. 

OUR  country  is  too  big  for  union,  too  sordid  for  patriotism, 
too  democratick  for  liberty.  What  is  to  become  of  it,  he  who 
made  it  best  knows.  Its  vice  will  govern  it,  by  practising  upon 
its  folly.  This  is  ordained  for  democracies  ;  and  if  morals  as 
pure-  as  Mr.  Fauchet  ascribes  to  the  French  republick,  did  not 
inspire  the  present  administration,  it  would  have  been  our  lot 
at  this  day. 

BUT  on  reading  the  message  I  am  edified,  as  much  as  if  I 
had  heard  a  methodist  sermon  in  a  barn.  The  men  who  have 
the  best  principles,  and  those  who  act  from  the  worst,  will  talk 
alike,  except  only  that  the  latter  will  exceed  the  former  in 
fervour.  But  the  language  of  deceit,  though  stale  and  expos 
ed  to  detection,  will  deceive  as  long  as  the  multitude  love  flat 
tery  better  than  restraints,  as  long  as  truth  has  only  charms  for 
fhe  blind,  and  eloquence  for  the  deaf.  Suppose  a  missionary 
should  go  to  the  Indians  and  recommend  self-denial  and  the 
ten  commandments,  and  another  should  exhort  them  to  drink 
rum,  which  would  first  con-vert  the  heathen  ?  Yet  we  are  told, 
the  vox  jwfiuli  is  the  vox  del;  and  our  demagogues  claim  a 
right  divine  to  reign  over  us,  deduced  no  doubt  from  the  pure 
source  I  have  indicated. 

MY  health  is  somewhat  better.  I  rode  in  a  chaise  to  Boston 
yesterday  with  Mrs.  A.  It  was  a  fine  day,  but  in  spite  of  all 
my  precautions,  I  was  caught  by  several  friends,  who  tired  me 
down  in  the  street.  My  progress  is  slow,  but  I  really  think  I 
make  some. 

You  shall  hear  from  me  as  often  as  I  can  find  a  spirit  of 
industry  to  write,  when  I  am  not  riding,  which  is  twice  a  day. 
But  if  I  should  prove  negligent,  still  believe  me,  as  I  really  am, 
Your  truly  affectionate  friend,  &c. 

FISHER  AMES, 


484  LETTERS. 


TO  THE  SAME. 

DEDHAM,  October  31st,  1803. 
MY  DEAR  FH.IEND, 

I  HAVE  this  morning  received  by  post  your  delightful 
treaty,  and  S.  H.  Smith's  paper,  and  your  esteemed  favour, 
in  which  you  give  me  a  particular  account  of  yourself  and  your 
accommodations.  This  latter  is  really  more  interesting  to  my 
curiosity  and  feelings  than  the  rest  of  the  contents  under  cover. 

THERE  is  little  room  for  hope,  almost  none  for  satisfaction, 
in  the  contemplation  of  publick  affairs.  When  somebody,  a 
jacobin  too,  drives,  we  must  go  ;  and  we  shall  go  the  old  and 
broad  road,  so  smooth,  so  much  travelled,  but  without  any  half 
way  house. 

HAVING  bought  an  empire,  who  is  to  be  cmperour  ?  The 
sovereign  people — and  what  people  ?  all,  or  only  the  people  of 
the  dominant  states,  and  the  dominant  demagogues  in  those 
states,  who  call  themselves  the  people  ?  As  in  old  Rome, 
Marius  or  Sylla,  or  Cesar,  Pompey,  Antony,  or  Lepidus  will 
vote  themselves  provinces  and  triumphs. 

I  HAVE  as  loyal  and  respectful  an  opinion  as  possible  of  the 
sincerity  in  folly  of  our  rulers.  But,  surely,  it  exceeds  all  my 
credulity  and  candour  on  that  head,  to  suppose  even  they  can 
contemplate  a  republican  form  as  practicable,  honest,  or  free, 
if  applied  when  it  is  so  manifestly  inapplicable  to  the  govern 
ment  of  one  third  of  God's  earth.  It  could  not,  I  think,  even 
maintain  forms ;  and  as  to  principles,  the  otters  would  as  soon 
obey  and  give  them  effect  as  the  G  atto- His jiano- Indian  omnium 
gatherum  of  savages  and  adventurers,  whose  pure  morals  are 
expected  to  sustain  and  glorify  our  republick.  Never  before 
was  it  attempted  to  play  the  fool  on  so  great  a  scale.  The 
game  will  not,  however,  be  half  played ;  nay,  it  will  not  be 
begun,  before  it  is  changed  into  another,  where  the  knave  will 
turn  up  trumps  and  win  the  odd  trick. 

PROPERTY  at  pubiick  disposal  is  sure  to  corrupt.  Here,  to 
make  this  result  equally  inevitable  and  inveterate,  power  is 


LETTERS.  485 

*lso  to  be  for  some  ages  within  the  arbitrium  of  a  house  of 
representatives.  Before  that  period,  Botany  bay  will  be  a  bet- 
tering-house  for  our  publick  men.  Our  morals,  for  ever  sun 
ning  and  flyblown,  like  fresh  meat  hung  up  in  the  election 
market,  will  taint  the  air  like  a  pestilence.  Liberty,  if  she  is 
not  a  goddess  that  delights  in  carnage,  will  choak  in  such  an 
atmosphere,  fouler  than  the  vapour  of  death  in  a  mine. 

YET  I  see,  that  the  multitude  are  told,  and  it  is  plain  they 
are  told,  because  they  will  believe  it,  that  liberty  will  be  a  gainer 
by  the  purchase.  They  are  deceived  on  their  weak  side  :  they 
think  the  purchase  a  great  bargain. — We  are  to  be  rich  by  sel 
ling  lands.  If  the  multitude  was  not  blind  before,  their  sordid 
avarice,  thus  addressed,  would  blind  them. 

BUT  what  say  your  wise  ones  ?  Is  the  payment  of  so  many 
millions  to  a  belligerent  no  breach  of  neutrality,  especially 
under  the  existing  circumstances  of  the  case,  when  Great 
Britain  is  fighting  our  battles  and  the  battles  of  mankind,  and 
Erance  is  combating  for  the  power  to  enslave  and  plunder  us 
and  all  the  world  ?  Is  not  the  twelve  years  reserve  of  a  right  to 
navigate,  Sec.  a  contravention  of  our  treaty  with  Great  Britain, 
as  all  other  nations  are  for  twelve  years  excluded  from  a  parti 
cipation  of  this  privilege,  especially  too  as  the  increase  of  the 
French  and  Spanish  navigation  is  avowedly  the  object  of  the 
stipulation  ? 

I  HAVE  not  yet  read  the  treaty.  I  have  only  glanced  my 
eye  over  the  seventh  article.  I  am  weary  and  sick  of  my  sub 
ject. 

MY  health  is  bad,  and  is  to  be  bad  through  the  winter.  I 
sleep  poorly,  digest  poorly,  and  often  take  cold.  I  persevere 
hi  riding  on  horseback,  and  shall  saw  wood  in  bad  weather 
when  I  cannot  ride.  I  live  like  an  ostrich  or  man-monkey, 
imported  from  a  foreign  climate,  and  pining  amidst  plenty  for 
want^f  the  native  food  that  would  suit  his  stomach.  Mine  is  as 
fastidickis  as  a  fine  lady's,  who  is  afraid  of  butter  on  her  pota 
toes,  lest  it  should  tinge  her  complexion. 

I  INTEND  soon  to  try  the  lukewarm  bath  in  the  evening,  not 
often,  but  occasionally.  A  bad  digestion  is  an  evil  not  to  br 


486  LETTERS. 

removed.     Its  effects  I  hope  may  be  parried  by  finding  some 
thing  that  I  can  better  digest  than  my  usual  food. 
MY  wife  and  I  join  in  saying,  God  bless  you. 

Being  your's  Sec. 

FISHER  AMES. 


TO  THE  SAME. 

DEC  HAM,  November  29th,  1803. 

YOUR  letters,  my  dear  friend,  afford  me  so  much  pleasure 
and  information,  that  I  cannot  forbear  writing  without  ingrati 
tude,  nor  write  without  making  very  barren  returns.  Whether 
bad  health  has  abated  my  ardour  in  every  thing,  or  that  the 
inevitable  consequence  of  having  nothing  to  do  with  our  poli 
ticks  is,  that  I  cease  to  care  who  has,  or  how  the  work  is  done, 
the  fact  is  certain,  I  am  almost  at  home  expatriated  from  the 
concerns  that  once  exclusively  engrossed  my  thoughts.  In  this 
philosophick,  lack-a-daysical  temper,  I  really  think  my  fellow 
sovereigns  participate.  Congress-hall  is  a  stage,  and  by  shift 
ing  the  scenes,  or  treading  the  boards  in  comedy  or  farce,  (for, 
since  the  repeal  of  the  judiciary,  you  do  not  get  up  tragedy) 
you  amuse  our  lazy  mornings  or  evenings  as  much,  or  nearly 
as  much,  as  the  other  theatres.  But  in  sober  truth,  the  affair 
is  as  much  theatrical  on  our  part  as  on  that  of  the  honourable 
members  on  the  floor.  You  personate  the  patriot,  and  we  the 
people  affect  the  sovereign.  We  beg  you  to  believe  on  the 
evidence  of  the  newspapers,  that  we  watch  you  closely,  and  lie 
awake  a-nights  with  our  fears  for  the  publick  safety. — No  such 
thing.  We  talk  over  our  drink  as  much  in  earnest  as  we  pos 
sibly  can,  and  among  ourselves,  when  nobody  is  a  looker-on 
whose  opinion  we  dread,  we  laugh  in  the  midst  of  our  counter 
feit  rage.  The  fact  is,  our  folks  are  ten  times  more  weary  of 
their  politicks,  than  anxious  about  their  results.  Touch  our 
pockets  directly,  or  our  pleasures  ever  so  indirectly,  then  see 
our  spirit.  We  flame,  we  soar  on  eagles'  wings,  as  high  as 
barn-door  fowl,  and  like  them,  we  light  to  scratch  again  in 


LETTERS.  487 

the  muckheap.  Alter  the  constitution ;  amend  it  till  it  is 
good  for  nothing ;  amend  it  again  and  again,  till  it  is  worse 
than  nothing  ;  violate  without  altering  its  letter,  it  is  your 
sport,  not  our's.  Our  apathy  is  a  match  for  your  party  spirit. 
The  dead  flesh  defies  your  stimulants.  We  sleep  under  the 
operation  of  your  knife,  as  the  Dutchman  is  said  to  have  gnaw 
ed  a  roasted  fowl,  while  the  surgeon  cut  off  his  leg.  There  is 
no  greater  imposture  than  to  pretend  our  people  watch,  un 
derstand,  or  care  a  sixpence  for  these  cheap  sins,  or  the  dis 
tant  damnation  they  will  draw  down  on  our  heads.  If  honest 
men  could  associate  for  honest  purposes,  if  we  had  in  short  a 
party,  which  I  think  federalists  have  not,  or  have  not  had  the 
stuff  to  make,  their  steady  opposition  to  the  progress  of  a  fac 
tion  towards  tyranny,  revolutionary  tyranny,  might  be  checked. 
I  wave  .the  subject,  however,  on  which  I  have  a  thousand 
times  vented  my  vexations  to  no  purpose.  Peace  to  the  dead. 

LOUISIANA  excites  less  interest  than  our  thanksgiving.  It 
is  an  old  story.  I  am  half  of  Talleyrand's  opinion,  when  he 
says,  we  are  phlegmatick,  and  without  any  passion  except  that 
for  money-getting. 

MR.  Huger,  in  his  speech  on  the  alteration  of  the  clause 
respecting  the  votes  for  president  and  vice  president,  pays 
compliments  to  the  candour  and  sincerity  of  the  amendment- 
mongers,  when  they  protest  and  swear,  that  they  want  no  other 
amendment.  This  compliment  is  not  worth  much  to  the  re 
ceivers,  but  is  a  costly  one  to  the  bestower.  Roland  and  Con- 
dorcet  always  protested,  that  they  would  stop.  But  is  a  revo 
lution  or  the  lightning  to  be  stopped  in  midway  ?  Mr.  E.  has 
libelled  the  constitution  in  a  newspaper.  The  Virginia  as 
sembly  has  voted  amendments  of  the  most  abominable  sort. 
All  the  noble  lords  of  Virginia  and  the  South  are  as  much  for 
rotation  in  office  as  the  senators  of  Venice.  It  is  the  genuine 
spirit  of  an  oligarchy,  eager  to  divide  power  among  them 
selves,  and  jealous  of  the  pre-eminence  of  any  one  even  of 
their  own  order. 

MR.  R.  in  his  speech  on  the  constitutionality  of  acquiring 
territory,  has  risen  again  in  my  opinion.  I  cannot  readily  as- 


488  LETTERS, 

sent  to  the  federal  argument,  that  our  government  is  a  mere 
affair  of  special  pleading,  and  to  be  interpreted  in  every  case  as 
if  every  thing  was  written  down  in  a  book.  Are  not  certain 
powers  inseparable  from  the  fact  of  a  society's  being  formed, 
are  they  not  incident  to  its  being  ?  Besides,  as  party  inter 
prets  and  amends  the  constitution,  and  as'  we  the  people  care 
not  a  pin's  point  for  it,  all  arguments  from  that  source,  how 
ever  solid,  would  avail  nothing. 

ONE  of  two  things  will,  I  confess,  take  place  :  either  the 
advances  of  the  faction  will  create  a  federal  party,  or  their  un 
obstructed  progress  will  embolden  them  to  use  their  power, 
as  all  such  gentry  will  if  they  dare,  in  acts  of  violence  on  pro 
perty.  In  the  former  case,  a  federal  party,  with  the  spirit 
which  in  every  other  free  country  political  divisions  impart  to 
a  minority,  will  retard  and  obstruct  the  course  of  the  ruling 
faction  towards  revolution  ;  and  if  they  do  not  move  quick, 
they  will  not,  perhaps,  be  able  long  to  move  at  all.  In  case 
of  a  strong  opposition  (I  use  the  term  in  a  qualified  and  guard 
ed  sense)  the  federalists  could  preserve  some  portion  of  right, 
though  they  might  not  have  strength  to  re-assume  power,  which 
I  confess  I  do  not  look  for. 

SUPPOSE  an  attack  on  property,  I  calculate  on  the  "  sensi 
bilities"  of  our  nation.  There  is  our  sensorium.  Like  a  ne 
gro's  shins,  there  our  patriotism  would  feel  the  kicks,  and 
twinge  with  agonies  that  we  should  not  be  able  so  much  as  to 
conceive  of,  if  we  only  have  our  faces  spit  in.  In  this  case 
we  rcould  wipe  off  the  ignominy,  and  think  no  more  of  the 
matter.  He  that  robs  me  of  my  good  name,  takes  trash. 
What  is  it  but  a  little  foul  breath,  tainted  from  every  sot's 
lungs  ?  But  he  who  takes  my  purse,  robs  me  of  that  which 
enriches  him,  instead  of  me,  and  therefore  I  will  have  ven 
geance. 

HENCE  I  am  far  from  despairing  of  our  commonwealth.  It 
is  true,  our  notions  are  pestilent  and  silly.  But  we  have  been 
cured  already  in  fourteen  years  of  more  of  them  than  a  civil 
war  and  ten  pitched  battles  would  have  eradicated  from  France. 


LETTERS.  489 

The  remainder  are,  indeed,  enough  to  ensure  our  destruction ; 
and  we  should  be  destroyed,  if  these  silly  democratick  opin 
ions,  which  once  governed  us  all,  were  not  now  so  exclusively 
claimed  and  carried  to  extremes  by  those  whom  we  so  dread 
and  despise,  that  we  in  New-England  are  in  a  great  measure 
driven  out  of  them.  The  fool's  cap  has  been  snatched  from  our 
heads  by  the  Southern  demos,  who  say,  this  Olympick  crown 
was  won  by  them.  Let  them  wear  it. 

CONNECTICUT  is  sound  enough  perhaps;  for  if  democracy 
were  less  in  that  state,  federalism  would  sink  with  them  as  in 
the  other  states.  But  their  first  men  are  compelled  to  come 
forward  in  self-defence.  They  are  in  the  federal  army  what 
the  immortals  were  in  the  Persian,  or  the  sacred  band  under 
Pelopidas.  I  will  not  mention  Vermont.  Rhode-Island  is  not 
to  be  spoken  of  by  any  body.  But  New-Hampshire,  old  Mas 
sachusetts,  and  Connecticut  are  too  important  to  be  forced  in 
to  a  revolution ;  and  at  present  appearances  do  not  indicate, 
that  they  will  join  in  hastening  it  on  willingly. 

FOR  these  and  other  reasons  I  think  our  condition  may  not 
soon  be  changed  so  essentially  as,  in  like  critical  circum 
stances,  it  would  be  in  any  other  country.  ,  We  shall  lose,  in 
deed,  almost  every  thing,  but  my  hope  is,  that  we  shall  save 
something  and  preserve  it  long. 

THUS  we  may,  like  a  wounded  snake,  drag  our  slow  length 
along  for  twenty  years ;  and  time  will  in  that  period  have  more 
to  do  in  fixing  our  future  destiny  than  our  administration. 
Events  govern  us ;  and  probably  those  of  Europe  will,  as 
heretofore,  communicate  an  unforeseen  and  irresistible  im 
pulse  to  our  politicks.  We  are  in  a  gulf  stream,  which  has 
hitherto  swept  us  along  with  more  force  than  our  sails  and 
oars.  I  think  the  government  will  last  my  time.  For  that 
reason,  I  will  fatten  my  pigs  and  prune  my  trees ;  nor  will 
I  any  longer  be  at  the  trouble  to  govern  this  country.  I 
am  no  Atlas,  and  my  shoulders  ache.  No,  that  irksome  task 
I  devolve  upon  Mr.  *****,  and  Mr.  *****  of  the  house,  and 
Mr.  *****  of  the  senate.  You  federalists  are  only  lookers  on, 


190  LETTERS. 

You  are  a  polite  man,  otherwise  you  would  say  I  have  tired 
you.     In  that  respect  I  have  used  you  as  well  as  I  do  myself. 
In  mercy  to  both,  I  this  moment  assure  you  of  the  affection 
ate  regard,  with  which  I  am,  my  dear  friend, 
Your's  truly, 

FISHER  AMES. 


10  MK.  *********,  MEMBER  OF  CONGRESS,  AT  WASHINGTON. 

DEDHAM,  November  27th,  1805. 
MY  DEAR  SIR, 

THERE'  is  a  good  deal  of  ferment  in  Boston,  and,  I  sup 
pose,  in  all  our  sea-ports,  in  consequence  of  some  late  condem 
nations  by  the  British.  It  is  hard  for  people  who  lose  money 
t6  believe,  that  those  who  get  it  by  their  loss  can  have  any 
justice  on  their  side.  When  the  French  and  Spaniards  take 
our  vessels,  we  are  not  very  angry,  because  we  do  not  imagine 
they  have  power  enough  at  sea  greatly  to  extend  the  evil ; 
and  we  expect  from  them  no  regard  to  principles  of  any  sort. 
But  the  English  captures  and  condemnations  alarm  us,  because 
we  can  scarcely  see  what  there  is  that  they  cannot  take  ;  and 
they  provoke  us,  because  we  discern,  or  affect  to  discern,  the 
perversion  or  evasion  of  principles,  admitted  and  respected 
as  much  by  them  as  by  ourselves. 

I  AM  so  unlucky  as  to  be  a  considerable  loser  in  the  insu 
rance  office  where  these  condemnations  are  felt.*  I  am  pa 
triot  enough  to  lament  any  obstruction  to  the  growth  of  our 
commerce  ;  and  I  am  not  philosopher  enough  to  be  indifferent 
to  the  reduction  of  my  property.  For  some  time  past  I  have 
tried,  with  a  good  promise  of  success,  to  convince  myself,  that 
the  principles  assumed  by  the  British  are  untenable.  My  rage 
has  not  risen  to  fever  heat,  and  my  faith  has  gradually  sunk 
down  to  the  freezing  point.  To  drop  all  metaphor,  I  am 
afraid  the  British  are  in  the  right  in  point  of  principle. 

*  The  writer  was  a  proprietor  to  the  amount  of  one  third  of  all  his  personal  property  in 
sin  office,  whose  interest  was  believed  to  he  extremely  injured  by  the  principle  asserted  by 
the  admiralty  courts ;  but  his  honest  heart  compelled  him  to  reason  against  his  interest. 


LETTERS.  491 

BOOKS  afford  but  a  dim  light  on  such  a  subject.  I  do  not 
pretend,  that  I  have  much  consulted  them. 

WAR  is  an  old  condition  of  mankind,  and  commerce,  as  it 
is  now  carried  on,  is  a  new  one.  Anciently,  the  nations  de 
pended  less  on  crossing  the  sea  and  more  on  the  traffick  by 
land  than  we  do.  J\toiv  the  articles  of  indispensable  necessity 
to  most  countries  are  drawn  from  the  East  and  West  Indies. 
Navies  too  were,  before  the  invention  of  the  mariner's  com 
pass,  less  used,  and  less  capable  of  being  used,  for  long  cruises, 
for  traversing  the  wide  ocean,  and  for  searching  and  com 
manding  all  its  shores  than  they  are  at  this  day. 

HENCE  it  is,  that  the  rights  of  war,  in  respect  to  the  exer 
cise  or  restraint  of  the  naval  power  of  states,  seem  to  me  more 
unsettled,  than  any  questions  arising  from  the  employment  ot 
forces  on  land.  We  are  obliged  to  resort  to  general  rules, 
which  every  body  will  admit  in  their  principle,  and  contest  in 
their  application.  Scarcely  any  doubts  subsist  in  regard  to 
military  land  operations  ;  but  almost  every  thing  is  considered, 
or  you  will  find  people  who  affect  to  consider  it,  as  novel,  or 
dubious,  or  an  abuse  in  the  employment  of  a  naval  force,  when 
neutrals  are  concerned.  We  hear  of  a  modern  law  of  nations, 
and  of  the  adverse  constructions  of  the  maritime  law,  assumed, 
varied,  and  abandoned,  as  interests  and  alliances  may  happen 
to  inspire  zeal  and  sophistry  to  invent  and  maintain  them. 

THIS  leads  some  persons  to  say,  the  maritime  law  has  no 
principles  ;  an  inference  altogether  unwarranted.  The  general 
principles  are  just,  and  their  authority  is  not  contested ;  but  the 
whole  modern  system  of  commerce  and  naval  power  is  so  re 
cent,  that  these  principles  have  not  been  long  enough  applied 
under  a  great  diversity  of  circumstances  to  make  their  appli 
cation  familiar  and  precise. 

PERHAPS  it  may  be  said,  the  present  position  of  things  in 
Europe  is  unlike  what  has  existed  there  in  all  former  wars, 
except  the  last.  Prior  to  the  war  which  ended  in  1763,  Great 
Britain  was  not  possessed  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  seas.  While 
something  like  a  naval  equilibrium  remained,  there  was  neither 
inducement  nor  occasion  to  apply  the  British  principles  in  re- 


492  LETTERS. 

gard  to  an  enemy's  colonies,  as  they  are  to  be  deduced  from 
the  late  condemnations.  While  France  could  fit  out  fleets, 
and  take  British  colonies,  and  intercept  British  trade  or  con 
voy,  and  protect  her  own,  she  was  not  obliged  to  sell  her  colo* 
ny  products  to  neutrals  to  so  great  an  extent  as  she  has  been 
under  the  necessity  of  doing  ever  since  1794  or  1795.  The 
assistance  of  neutrals  has  become  her  only  resource  for  draw 
ing  a  cent  from  her  colonies.  Of  course,  by  the  superiority 
of  the  British  naval  arms,  the  colonies  of  her  enemy  are  put 
out  of  a  condition  to  assist  the  parent  country  in  war  almost 
as  effectually  as  if  they  were  captured  and  garrisoned  by 
Britons. 

WHEN  it  is  considered,  that  all  the  means  of  Great  Britain 
to  annoy,  exhaust,  and  subdue  her  antagonist,  and  finally  to 
prescribe  a  peace  on  terms  compatible  with  her  safety  and  ex 
istence  are  naval  means,  it  seems  to  ensue  as  a  consequence, 
that  she  has  a  right,  while  in  a  state  of  war,  to  use  them 
to  the  utmost  extent  that  may  be  necessary  for  preservation. 
Certainly  she  has  a  better  right  to  exist,  than  neutrals  have  to 
trade.  Self-preservation  is  the  paramount  law  of  states  as  well 
as  individuals.  If,  therefore,  the  rights  of  neutrals  happen  to 
interfere  with  this  superiour  right  of  the  belligerent,  they 
must  yield,  and  be  exercised  only  so  far  as  may  consist  with  it. 

NECESSITY,  I  shall  be  told,  is  the  tyrant's  plea.  I  reply, 
when  that  truly  exists  it  is  a  good  one,  and  for  that  reason 
tyrants  resort  to  it  when  it  does  not  exist. 

BEFORE  the  independence  of  the  United  States,  Great  Bri 
tain  had  it  not  in  her  power  thus  effectually  to  lock  up  her  ene 
my's  colonies.  France  then  also  had  fleets  to  protect  them ; 
and  she  had  merchant  ships  to  transport  their  rich  produce  to 
the  markets  of  Europe.  Even  then,  however,  Great  Britain's 
maritime  principles  were  enforced  against  the  Dutch  and 
other  neutrals.  But,  since  the  independence  of  America,  cir 
cumstances  have  changed ;  and  if  the  change  has  not  given 
birth  to  new  principles,  it  affords  new  light  in  the  application 
of  old  ones. 


LETTERS.  493 

France  has  not  even  a  sloop  or  schooner  employed  in 
her  colonial  commerce.  She  is  reduced  to  absolute  nullity 
and  impotence  by  the  British  navy,  as  to  all  the  resources  she 
once  drew  from  her  colonies.  Who  will  hesitate  in  admitting, 
that  this  use  of  the  British  navy  is  to  the  last  degree  impor 
tant  to  her,  distressing,  humbling,  enfeebling  to  her  enemy, 
and  perhaps  ultimately  decisive  of  the  event  of  the  war  by  its 
influence  on  the  comparative  force  of  the  two  nations  ?  Every 
dollar  received  by  France  from  her  colonies  would  be  employ 
ed  against  England.  This  is  prevented  by  England.  More 
over,  the  British  colonies  thrive  directly  and  essentially  by  the 
exclusion  of  their  hostile  rivals  from  the  European  market ; 
and  the  British  commerce  is  even  augmented  by  the  circuitous 
and  expensive  supplies,  which  France  ultimately  receives. 

THESE,  no  doubt,  are  inducements  for  the  British  to  exer 
cise,  and,  possibly,  to  stretch  all  the  maritime  rights  they  have 
as  a  belligerent  nation.  If  we  hesitate  to  allow,  that  the  ex 
clusion  of  neutrals  from  enemies'  colonies  is  one  of  those 
rights,  because  the  admission  would  too  much  restrict  neutral 
commerce,  let  us  suppose  the  British  principle  unfounded  and 
reject  it.  If  we  find,  that  by  its  rejection  the  rights  of  the 
belligerent  are  annihilated,  shall  we  not  hesitate  still  more  ? 
Shall  we  not  discern  still  greater  difficulties  ?  Being  reduced 
to  choose  between  two  rival  doctrines,  shall  we  not  endeavour 
to  test  them  both  by  their  operation,  and  prefer  that  which 
can  be  best  reconciled  with  reason  and  justice  ? 

SUPPOSE,  then,  that  Great  Britain,  with  a  power  to  hinder, 
has  no  right  to  hinder  the  exportation  of  the  products  of  the 
French  colonies  to  any  European  neutral  port — of  what  use  or 
efficacy  is  her  navy  in  the  prosecution  of  the  war,  so  far  as  the 
colonies  of  her  enemy  are  concerned  ?  America,  now  indepen 
dent,  full  of  enterprise  and  capital,  with  a  million  tons  of  ship 
ping,  can  buy  in  the  islands,  store  in  the  United  States,  and 
transport  to  neutral  ports  in  Europe  convenient  for  the  supply 
of  France  herself,  every  hogshead  of  sugar,  and  every  bag  of 
coffee  that  can  be  furnished  by  the  plantations,  on  such  terms 
that  the  French  colonies  shall  not  feel  the  war.  They  shall 


494  LETTERS, 

not  be  annoyed  by  the  British  naval  arms,  but  shall  even  flourish 
the  more  for  their  superiority.  Depending  entirely  on  neutrals, 
they  shall  lose  nothing  by  captures,  because,  having  sold  their 
produce,  they  risk  nothing ;  while  British  produce  is  liable  to 
capture,  and,  if  not  captured,  to  high  war  premiums  of  insu 
rance.  The  French  colonist  would  ultimately,  if  not  immedi 
ately,  command  a  price  for  his  crops,  the  more  advantageous 
by  reason  of  the  cheap  and  safe  navigation  of  American  vessels ; 
he  would  prosper  in  full  peace,  while  the  British  colonist 
would  feel  the  effects  of  war  on  his  profits.  His  only  market 
would  be  England,  because  he  would  be  undersold  on  the  con 
tinent.  The  seamen  withdrawn  from  the  French  colonial  com 
merce  would  be,  as  in  fact  they  are,  on  board  their  men  of  war, 
or  in  the  armies ;  and  the  resources  of  the  colonies  would  be 
steadily  and  without  diminution  by  capture  drawn  by  France 
into  her  own  territory,  and  employed  to  equip  flotillas  and  array 
armies  of  invasion  against  England. 

I  CANNOT  help  observing)  if  all  this  be  right  in  principle,  it 
is  a  principle  that  will  never  be  of  any  authority  or  value  in 
practice.  For  whoever  may  happen  to  have  the  power  to 
hinder  these  consequences,  will  surely  employ  a  superiour 
fleet  to  hinder  them.  It  seems,  therefore,  to  be  a  discourag 
ing  labour,  to  establish  such  a  nugatory  interpretation  of  the 
maritime  law  of  nations  as  we  are  sure  from  its  very  nature 
the  powerful  must  reject. 

WE  claim  a  right  to  trade  to  the  French,  Dutch,  or  Spanish 
colonies,  and  to  convey  their  produce  to  any  countries  that  will 
receive  it.  We  say,  that  these  nations,  though  enemies  of 
England,  are  our  friends,  with  whom  we  have  long  been  ac 
customed  to  trade ;  that  they  have  adequate  authority  to  adjust 
with  us  the  terms  of  our  intercourse  with  all  their*"territories, 
the  colonies  as  well  as  the  parent  countries  ;  and  that,  as  our 
neutral  traffick  with  these  colonies  is  carried  on  in  consequence 
of  acts  or  laws  of  those  parent  countries,  it  is  a  lawful  trade, 
and  the  interruption  of  it  by  the  British  cruisers  has  all  the 
qualities  of  tyranny  and  injustice. 


LETTERS.  495 

THE  British  cabinet  might,  I  am  afraid,  confound  our  logick 
by  replying  :  you  have  a  right,  as  neutrals,  to  traffick  with  our 
enemy  to  as  great  extent  as  you  could  before  the  war ;  and 
to  that  extent  we  do  not  now  disturb  your  trade.  But  your 
trade  with  the  enemy's  colonies  is  not  of  that  description.  It 
is  not  a  privilege  you  derive  from  his  grant,  but  from  our 
arms.  It  is  a  species  of  trade  you  did  not  enjoy  before,  and 
never  would  have  derived  from  the  friendship  of  our  enemy 
towards  you.  He  makes  use  of  your  neutrality  to  escape  from 
us.  By  your  means  the  proceeds  of  his  colonies  become  an 
effective  branch  of  his  force.  This  we  cannot  suffer.  His  con 
cession  in  opening  his  colonial  ports  is  valid  and  legal,  as  re 
gards  the  transactions  between  him  and  you  ;  but  as  between 
us  and  you,  it  is  a  fraud,  out  of  which  no  right  can  grow.  It 
is  a  fraud,  because  it  invalidates  our  belligerent  rights  ;  and 
because,  notoriously,  our  enemy  never  opens  his  colonies,  till 
he  can  no  longer  resist  that  reason  for  opening  them  Every 
fraudulent  deed  or  grant  is  absolutely  void,  as  it  respects  third 
persons  who  have  bona  fide  titles. 

IF  we  attempt  to  answer  this  argument  by  ever  so  loud  an 
invective  against  the  sweeping  tyranny  of  their  principle,  they 
would  not  fail  to  insist,  that  no  principle  can  be  less  chargeable 
as  arbitrary  or  indefinite  than  that  which  they  enforce.  It  is 
not  arbitrary,  because  it  does  not  depend  in  the  least  on  Great 
Britain  to  open  the  colonies  of  her  rivals  in  time  of  peace  ;  it 
is  not  indefinite,  because  England  even  now  forbears  to  urge 
her  claim  beyond  the  practice  and  course  of  trade  before  the 
war. 

WHAT  then,  she  might  say,  do  I  restrict  or  abridge  of  the 
American  liberty  of  commerce  ?  Surely  not  your  usual  inter 
course  with  France,  Spain,  and  Holland.  I  allow  all  that  they 
ever  allowed,  till,  in  fact,  they  had  nothing  left  to  allow  or  refuse, 
having  lost  all  power  of  protection  or  control  over  their  colonies 
by  the  superiority  of  my  navy.  You  may  supply  your  own  con 
sumption  by  your  direct  trade  with  those  colonies.  You  may 
trade  with  such  of  those  colonies  as  were  open  to  you  be 
fore  the,  war.  I  abstain  from  condemning  your  cargoes  of 


496  LETTERS. 

colonial  produce,  if  I  find  it  has  been  landed  in  the  United 
States,  and  mixed  with  the  mass  of  your  property.  A  voyage 
from  those  colonies  to  the  United  States,  as  a  mere  cloak  for 
the  prosecution  of  the  voyage  to  Europe,  I  consider  illegal. 

HAD  this  doctrine  of  the  British  admiralty  been  early  and 
publickly  known,  I  cannot  but  suppose  it  would  have  been 
acquiesced  in.  Why  our  administration  have  neglected  or 
forborne  to  ask  explanations,  or  to  make  remonstrances  on  the 
subject,  is  unintelligible,  if  they  comprehend  our  commercial 
rights,  and  care  as  they  ought  for  our  interests. 

WHAT  remains  now  to  be  done,  is  not  for  me  to  decide. 
Confiscation  will  be  wicked  and  violent,  and  a  non-intercourse 
act  will  be  foolish  and  violent.  There  is  no  stopping  at  such 
measures — war  would  ensue.  That  is  not  the  desire  of  our 
rulers.  How  then  can  they  gratify  their  own  prejudices,  and 
escape  the  curses  of  the  French  party,  if  they  neither  con 
fiscate  nor  stop  intercourse  ?  To  avow,  that  they  intend  to  do 
nothing,  is  impossible  ;  to  do  any  thing  by  a  treaty,  they  dare 
not  even  contemplate.  Will  they  not  instruct  Munroe  to  ask 
explanations,  affect  ad  interim  to  bluster,  and  secretly  resolve 
to  acquiesce  in  every  thing,  usurpation  or  not  usurpation,  that 
shall  reduce  the  Yankee  merchants  to  impotence  and  poverty  ? 
Will  not  the  crisis  by.  these  means  pass  away  in  speeches  and 
smoke  ?  and  if  Britain  should  lose  her  allies  and  her  spiYits, 
will  they  not  then  pay  court  to  Buonaparte,  by  venturing  to 
insist  upon  her  concessions  ? 

IT  is  one  of  the  most  consuming  curses  of  heaven,  and  we 
deserve  it,  to  commit  the  affairs  of  a  nation  to  rulers,  who  find 
in  their  popularity,  their  rapacity,  or  their  ambition,  an  interest 
separate  from  the  interests  of  the  people. 

MY  sentiments  are  frankly  and  unreservedly  given  to  you  ; 
but  as  they  are  hastily  conceived  and  expressed,  I  may,  possi 
bly,  on  meditation,  retract  them. 

Yours,  Sec. 

FISHER  AMES. 


LETTERS.  497 


TO  MR.  ******,  AT  SPRINGFIELD. 

DEDHAM,  November  29,  1805. 
Thanksgiving  Evening. 

MY  DEAR  FRIEND, 

N.  is  better.  His  leg  is  yet  much  swelled,  but  nearly 
free  from  pain,  and  the  doctor  hopes  no  suppuration  will 
ensue.  You  will  rejoice  with  us,  for  our  revived  hopes  make 
a  truly  joyful  thanksgiving.  In  every  other  respect,  it  is 
dull  enough. 

M.  and  H.  are  at  my  mother's,  in  search  of  something 
more  cheerful  than  my  house  affords.  They  have  fine  spi 
rits,  and  improve,  I  make  no  doubt,  by  their  Medford  school. 
My  John  W.  sits  by  me  at  his  book,  "  the  world  forgetting" 
and  enjoying  a  thanksgiving  feast  for  his  mind.  It  is  true, 
he  reads  on  such  occasions  for  amusement,  but  I  indulge 
him,  for  I  hope  something  will  stick  to  him.  The  habit  of 
literary  labour  may  be  ingrafted  on  the  free  stock  of  literary 
curiosity.  I  will  not  defend  my  metaphor,  but  I  believe  my 
meaning  is  expressed  clearly  by  it.  A  passion  for  books  is 
never  inspired,  I  believe,  late,  in  the  breasts  of  those,  who, 
having  access  to  books,  do  not  feel  it  young.  But  to  apply, 
to  investigate  closely,  to -study,  to  make  the  mind  ivork,  is  a 
very  different  thing  from  a  passionate  fondness  for  battles  and 
romances.  It  is  by  performing  tasks,  not  by  choosing  books 
for  their  amusement,  that  boys  obtain  this  power  to  fix  and 
detain  attention. 

BUT  is  there  encouragement  in  our  country  to  educate 
boys  for  any  great  degree  of  usefulness  ?  While  faction  is 
forging  our  fetters,  the  specious  talents  are  more  in  demand 
than  the  solid.  But  after  a  tyranny  is  settled,  perhaps,  our 
Augustus  will  have  a^  fancy,  that  learning  is  an  essential 
thing  to  his  glory.  Nero  pretends  to  be  an  artist  him 
self,  and  would  feel  himself  eclipsed  by  the  excellence  of 
another. 


498  LETTERS. 

EVERY  popular  despotism  is,  I  believe,  in  its  inception 
base  and  tasteless.  As  great  geniuses  snatch  the  sceptre 
from  the  hands  of  great  little  rascals,  the  government  rises, 
though  liberty  rises  no  more.  Ours  is  gone,  never  to  return. 
To  mitigate  a  tyranny,  is  all  that  is  left  for  our  hopes.  We 
cannot  maintain  justice  by  the  force  of  our  constitution  ;  yet, 
I  think,  the  spirit  of  commerce,  which  cannot  be  separated 
from  the  Yankee  mind,  is  favourable  to  justice.  To  guard 
property  by  some  good  rules,  is  a  necessary  of  life  in  every 
commercial  state. 

BUT  it  is  foolish,  or  rather  it  is  presumptuous,  to  specu 
late  on  the  untried  state  of  being  that  our  degraded  country- 
has  to  pass  through. 

Vestibulum  ante  ipsum,  primoque  in  limine  Ditis 
Luctus  et  ultrices  posuere  cubilia  Curse. 

I  quote  from  memory  of  Virgil's  sixth  book,  perhaps  not 
correctly  *.  The  application  seems  to  me  fearfully  correct. 
At  the  threshold  of  our  new  state  of  being,  we  are  to  meet 
the  Luctus  et  ultrices  Curae. 

I  WILL  leave  my  letter  open  till  morning,  to  inform  you 
more  of  N. 

Your  affectionate  friend, 

FISHER  AMES 


TO  MR.  *********?  MEMBER  OF  CONGRESS,  AT  WASHINGTON. 

DEDHAM,  January  28th,  1806. 
MY  DEAR  SIR, 

I  HAVE  had  it  in  my  thoughts  to  examine  the  question 
of  our  right  to  trade  with  the  revolted  part  of  St.  Domingo, 
as  it  is  laid  down  in  books.  And  I  well  know,  that  to  meddle 
with  it  in  a  loose  way  is  peculiarly  improper  in  a  letter  to 

*  Virgil's  words  are  : 

Vestibulum  ante  ipsum,  primisque  iu  laucibus  Orci 

Luctus  et  ultrices  posuere  cubilia  Curse. 

Just  in  the  gate,  and  in  the  jaws  of  hell, 

Revengeful,  Caret  and  sullen  Soirmvs  (hvcll, Dryden. 


LETTERS.  499 

you,  who  spare  no  pains  to  get  at  truth,  and  hold  every  sub 
stitute  for  it  in  contempt.  Nevertheless,  as  I  perceive  I  shall 
be  occupied  on  some  turnpike  business  and  hindered  from 
reading  writers  on  the  law  of  nations,  I  feel  a  desire  to  com 
municate  such  thoughts  as  rise  uppermost. 

NATIONS  very  properly  abstain  from  assuming  the  deci 
sion  of  questions  of  right  between  any  two  contending  powers. 
Facts  alone  are  regarded.  When,  therefore,  one  state  claims 
from  another  subjection  and  obedience,  which  that  other 
refuses  to  yield,  and  maintains  its  refusal  by  successful  arms, 
no  third  power  will  constitute  itself  the  judge  of  the  legiti 
macy  of  its  reasons  for  so  refusing.  The  actual  possession 
of  independence  is  ground  enough  for  holding  a  state  inde 
pendent  of  right,  as  far  as  third  parties  are  concerned  nation- 
ally.  I  mean,  that  the  trade  to  such  a  self-made  new  state 
is  not  a  national  offence  against  the  power  claiming  sover 
eignty  over  the  revolted  country.  This  intercourse  is  at  the 
peril  of  the  private  individuals  concerned,  whose  cargoes 
may  be  seized  and  confiscated  by  the  cruisers  of  the  offended 
nation.  But  their  so  continuing  to  trade,  seems  not  obviously 
to  implicate  the  nation  to  which  the  traders  belong,  unless  that 
nation,  or  its  government,  should  do  some  act,  whereby  such 
responsibility  is  assumed.  For  the  greater  clearness  I  will 
put  a  case.  The  Dutch  assumed  independence  in  1570  or  80. 
While  this  event  was  recent,  and  the  contest  depending,  the 
Dutch  cities  suffering  sieges,  and  the  armies  of  Spain  supe- 
riour  in  the  field  in  Holland,  the  supply  of  arms  by  queen 
Elizabeth  was,  of  course,  an  act  of  aggression.  But  for  a 
London  merchant  to  send  flour  or  sugar  at  the  risk  of  capture 
by  the  Spaniards,  it  seems  to  me,  would  not  amount  to  an 
act  of  intermeddling  by  the  English  government  ;  especially, 
I  will  add,  if  the  queen  had,  by  proclamation,  apprized  her 
subjects,  that  a  civil  war  raged  in  Holland,  in  which  she 
would  take  no  part,  and  that  she  forbade  her  subjects  trad 
ing  with  the  Dutch,  on  the  peril  of  capture  as  aforesaid  by 
the  Spaniards,  in  which  case  she  would  not  claim  restitution, 


000  LETTERS. 

nor  afford  protection  to  the  captured.  The  war  would  then 
proceed  by  Spain  against  English  traders  ;  and  the  supplies 
poured  into  Holland  would  afford  no  ground  for  hostilities 
against  England. 

BUT  after  the  Spanish  armies  were  beaten  out  of  the  coun 
try,  and  after  the  lapse  of  near  thirty  years  without  any  effort 
to  subdue  the  Dutch,  the  capture  of  such  vessels  would  be 
apparently  unjust. 

WHETHER  the  suspension  of  the  efforts  of  France  to  re 
cover  St.  Domingo,  merely  because  of  the  war  with  England, 
amounts  to  an  abandonment  of  the  colony,  is  questionable. 
There  is,  in  fact,  no  doubt  she  intends  to  resume  the  busi 
ness  as  soon  as  the  mare  clausum  becomes  once  more  a 
mare  liberum  by  a  peace  with  Great  Britain.  Ad  interim 
any  national  act  of  intermeddling  on  the  part  of  the  United 
States  in  favour  of  Dessalines  would  be  an  aggression.  Per 
mitting  the  use  of  force  against  French  captures  may  pos 
sibly  be  unwarrantable.  But  the  declaring  by  Mr.  Jeffer 
son's  proclamation,  that  traders  taken  in  such  commerce  will 
not  be  protected,  in  other  words,  that  they  traffick  with  Des 
salines  at  their  peril,  i.  e.  the  peril  of  capture  by  the  French, 

1  should  think,  would  exculpate  our  government  and  nation, 
on  principle. 

FOR  congress  to  legislate  seems  to  me  quite  another  thing. 
It  is  ex  abundantia,  it  is  more  than  France  can  properly  re 
quire.  If  Mr.  Jefferson  should  issue  a  proclamation,  declar 
ing  the  trade  unauthorized  and  at  the  peril  of  the  concerned, 
it  would  be  left  to  the  French  to  enforce  the  law  as  it  now 
exists  by  capturing  the  vessels,  if  they  can.  But  for  us  to 
extend  or  create  rights  and  remedies  for  them  ;  to  say,  you 
cannot  catch  these  wrong-doers,  but  we  can  and  will,  seems 
to  be  journey-work  for  Buonaparte.  As  I  premised,  it  quits 
the  ground  of  matter  of  fact  for  perplexing  theories.  If  the 
power  of  France  is  not  adequate  to  exclude  St.  Domingo 
from  the  exercise  of  its  independence*  it  has  just  the  same 
right,  the  right  of  the  strongest,  to  independence,  upon 


LETTERS.  501 

which  other  nations  found  their  exercise  of  it.  It  is  already 
de  facto,  and,  of  course,  de  jure  independent. 

ON  the  other  hand,  if  France  has  means  to  cut  off  the  trade 
of  that  island,  and  to  capture  the  vessels  concerned  in  it,  let 
her  use  those  means.  We  abandon  our  traders  to  capture. 

THUS  the  question  is  left  to  work  its  own  peaceable  deci 
sion,  without  compromitting  the  tranquillity,  dignity,  or 
rights  of  either  the  United  States  or  France.  Has  the  latter 
any  right  beyond  the  foregoing,  i.  e.  to  a  publick  disclaimer 
by  proclamation  of  all  protection  to  those  concerned  in  trad 
ing,  and  to  a  faithful  forbearance  to  form  treaties  or  afford 
any  aid,  as  a  government,  to  the  black  emperour.  Is  not  the 
request,  or  rather  insolent  claim  of  more  than  this  an  admis 
sion;  that  St.  Domingo  is  lost  to  France,  and  that  the  United 
States  must  turn  the  war  into  a  blockade  to  starve  the  blacks 
into  submission?  Is  it  not  saying  to  us,  we  do  not  merely 
ask  your  forbearance — we  insist  on  your  co-operation  ;  you 
must  meddle,  but  only  on  our  side  ? 

IF  my  ideas  are  made  intelligible,  they  seem  to  me  of 
some  use  to  discriminate  the  line  of  right  and  duty  in  the 
case,  which  line,  perhaps,  is  to  admit,  that  the  French  have 
rights,  and  leave  them  to  exercise  them  as  they  now  exist ; 
but  to  refuse  legislating  for  extending  those  rights  or  en 
forcing  them  by  our  power. 

As  to  the  line  of  policy,  I  can  scarcely  doubt,  that  we  ought 
to  shun  a  quarrel  with  France  upon  the  point,  if  France 
contents  herself  with  claiming  no  more  than  an  existing  right, 
and  the  enforcing  it  by  capturing  the  vessels  in  rhe  trade. 
If  she  claims  more  from  the  United  States  as  a  vassal,  our 
dignity  should  be  temperately  asserted,  and  her  demand 
civilly  but  firmly  refused.  We  ought  by  no  means  to  com 
mit  ourselves  to  the  discredit  of  a  treaty  with  Dessalines,  or 
in  any  way  to  intermeddle  as  a  government.  But  we  ought 
to  wish  most  earnestly,  that  Hayti  may  maintain  its  indepen 
dence  ;  and  so  much  the  more,  as  the  colonial  systems  of  all 
nations  may  be  expected  on  a  peace  to  abridge  our  inter 
course  with  the  dependent  islands. 


502  LETTERS. 

I  HAVE  run  the  risk  to  write  these  crude  conceptions  as 
fast  as  I  can  drive  my  quill,  and  I  can  assure  you,  I  shall 
feel  no  mortification,  if  it  should  turn  out,  that  I  commit 
several  mistakes  in  the  argument. 

I  am,  dear  sir, 

With  unfeigned  esteem 
Your's,  Sec. 

FISHER  AMES. 

P.  S.  IT  occurs  to  me  to  add,  that  there  is  some,  though. 
1  am  aware,  not  a  close  analogy  between  the  case  of  our  trade 
with  Hayti  and  the  revenue  laws  of  foreign  nations.  To  en 
force  these,  one  state  never  asks  legislative  or  any  other  aid 
from  another.  Yet  smuggling  is  an  evil.  I  know  it  has  been 
said,  that  the  reason  for  this  mutual  forbearance  is,  that  re 
venue  laws  arc  merely  municipal,  and  create  neither  right 
nor  obligation  out  of  the  territory  for  which  they  were  made. 

BUT,  as  a  matter  of  right^  we  equally  abstain  from  the 
question  depending  in  arms  between  the  two  emperours, 
Dessalines  and  Napoleon.  The  fact,  that  St.  Domingo  once 
acknowledged,  and  now  refuses  to  acknowledge  the  supreme 
authority  of  France,  is  all  that  we  know  or  will,  if  we  are 
wise,  concern  ourselves  to  know.  The  rights  claimed  by 
France  are  merely,  that  we  shall  not  intermeddle  in  the  con 
test  ;  not  that  we  shall  help  her. 

JUSTICE  requires,  that  I  should  make  it  understood,  that 
I  claim  from  you  no  answers  to  my  communications.  I  would 
sooner  suppress  such  of  my  letters,  than  have  them  operate 
to  impose  a  task  on  you. 


TO  MR.  ****** ^  AT  SPRINGFIELD. 

DEDHAM,  February  1st,  1806. 

Saturday. 
My  DEAR  FRIEND, 

ALL  habits  grow  stronger  as  we  grow  older  ;  and  I  am 
sorry  to  find,  that  the  bad  habit  of  neglecting  to  write  t& 


LETTERS.  503 

you  becomes  more  inveterate  by  indulgence.  I  condemn 
myself  for  it,  and  go  round  the  beaten  circle  of  resolving  to 
do  better  in  future.  But  what  avail  wise  saws  against  fool 
ish  propensities  ? 

HAPPENING  to  be  in  the  office,  pen  and  ink  before  me, 
and  expecting  your  brother  J.  this  evening,  I  say  to  myself, 
nick  the  moment,  and  write,  or  you  will  persist  in  your  sins, 
and  aggravate  them  by  your  fruitless  repentance.  Con 
science,  which  will  sometimes  meclclie  against  old  sinners, 
speaks  out,  contrary  to  custom,  with  some  authority,  and  I 
obey. 

THESE  few  lines  come  to  let  you  know,  that  I  am  very 
well,  sickness  excepted,  as  I  hope  you  are,  without  excep 
tion,  at  this  present  writing.  Want  of  exercise  brings  want 
of  appetite,  that  furs  my  tongue  and  dulls  my  wits.  I  sleep 
worse,  and  yet  am  a  sleepy  fellow  ;  and  on  the  whole  have 
ground  for  two  dozen  complaints  about  my  health,  and  not 
one  new  apprehension. 

WHY  did  you  not  invite  me  to  visit  Springfield  ?  That 
omission,  some  care  of  our  ever-depending  turnpike,  the 
depth  of  the  snow,  and  its  faithless  appearance  in  this  thawy 
weather,  banish  or  retard  the'project  I  wish  to  ripen  and  exe 
cute  of  going  with  my  one  horse  cutter  to  your  town.  Why 
should  I  not?  Do  I  not  want  some  of  your  large  pepper 
seed  ?  The  dry  season  forbade  mine  to  ripen.  Do  I  not  want 
to  see  your  great  bridge  ?  Do  I  not  want  to  drink  your  cider, 
which  article  is  scarce  here  ?  How  reasons  thicken  in  my 
catalogue.  Yet  as  they  govern  me  just -as  little  as  they  do 
the  rest  of  this  stubborn,  unreasonable  world,  I  think  it 
probable  I  shall  not  go;  and  that  on  the  aforesaid  grounds  it 
is  much  more  proper,  that  you  and  your  good  wife  should 
come  here,  although  you  could  not  find  one  of  the  reasons 
for  it  that  I  have  urged  in  my  own  case. 

As  you  would  not  come  for  pepper  seed,  nor  to  drink  cider, 
nor  to  see  the  Dedham  canal  up  Charles  river,  which  is  not  to 
be  seen,  I  will  readily  admit  that  you  both  come  to  see  Mrs.  A. 


504  LETTERS. 

and  your  humble  servant.  I  will  not  enlarge  on  the  weight 
these  last  motives  would  have  with  any  other  good  people, 
but  my  vanity  stiffly  maintains,  that  they  have  influence  with 
you.  Indeed  it  founds  itself  a  good  deal  on  such  kind  of 
pretensions. 

SIR,  I  was  elected  president — not  of  the  United  States ; 
and  do  you  know  why  I  did  not  accept?  I  had  no  inclina 
tion  for  it.  The  health  I  have  would  have  been  used  up  at 
Cambridge  in  a  year.  My  old  habits  are  my  dear  comforts, 
and  these  must  have  been  violently  changed. 

How  much  I  was  in  a  scrape  in  consequence  of  the  offer, 
and  with  what  three  weeks  mystery  and  address  I  extri 
cated  myself,  are  themes  for  conversation  when  we  meet. 
I  have  extricated  myself,  and  feel  like  a  truck  or  stage  horse, 
who  is  once  more  allowed  to  roll  in  the  dirt  without  his  har 
ness.  Every  body  has  heard  of  Mrs.  A's.  proposing  that  I 
should  take  H.  A.  if  I  went  to  Cambridge,  as  she  would 
neither  go  nor  learn  Greek. 

APROPOS  of  Hannah  Adams.  Her  abridgement  of  her 
history  of  New-England  for  the  use  of  schools  has,  I  believe, 
superiour  merit.  I  have  read  a  chapter,  and,  after  reading 
more,  shall  put  my  name  to  the  recommendation  of  the 
work.  Young  *******  *********  and  others,  friends  to 
modest  merit,  have  bought  the  whole  of  her  first  edition, 
and  a  second  is  preparing.  I  wish  to  see  it  in  use. 

ARE  you  sharp  shooters  of  Hampshire  ready  to  get  the 
bounty  for  Englishmen's  scalps?  ******'s  intemperate  folly 
shews  the  temper  of  the  ruling  party.  If  a  step  should  be 
stirred  onward  in  that  path,  we  are  plump  in  a  war.  I  have 
hoped,  that  the  sacred  shield  of  cowardice,  as  Junius  calls  it, 
would  protect  our  peace.  I  still  hope.  Yet  this  tongue 
couruge  is  a  bad  omen.  If  we  assert  rights,  that  we  cannot 
maintain  by  argument,  and  that  we  will  not  enforce  by  arms, 
what  follows  from  our  so  early  putting  down  our  foot ;  so 
positively  stating,  that  Britain  usurps  our  rights,  and  that 
we  never  will  abandon  them  ?  What,  Lsay,  but  an  increased 
and  a  very  unnecessary  propensity  on  both  sides  to  war ;  an 


LETTERS.  505 

indisposition  to  negotiation,  "  the  only  umpire  between  just 
nations  ;"  and  a  tenfold  disgrace,  if  we  tamely  forbear  to  en 
force  our  claims,  or  explicitly  renounce  them  ?  In  point  of 
true  dignity  or  common  prudence  this  preliminary  engagement 
of  our  government  to  be  inflexible  seems  singularly  absurd. 
Mr.  Madison's  great  pamphlet  on  the  maritime  principle  of 
Great  Britain,  however  plausible  and  ingenious,  is  an  indis 
creet  pledge  of  the  government  and  of  the  publick  opinion  to 
maintain  what  we  know  England  will  not  concede  and  we  will 
not  enforce. 

I  COULD  subjoin,  that  the  chief  labour  of  Madison  is  to 
shew,  that  Great  Britain  has  no  right  from  old  treaties  nor 
from  old  writers.  He  might  as  well  shew,  that  neither  Aris 
totle  nor  the  laws  of  Solon  make  any  mention  of  such  a  prin 
ciple.  A  new  state  of  things  exists,  and  a  new  case  requires 
a  new  application  of  old  principles.  Here  I  strongly  appre 
hend,  the  decision  will  be  against  us  at  "the  bar  of  reason" 
where  Mr.  Jefferson,  like  the  crier,  summons  Mr.  Pitt  to  ap 
pear  and  answer.  How  is  it  possible  for  Great  Britain  to  de 
fend  herself,  without  the  utmost  use  of  her  navy  ?  and  how  can 
she  use  her  navy  with  any  effect  against  her  deadly  enemy, 
if  she  leaves  his  colony  trade  free  to  neutrals,  and  thereby 
makes  that  immense  fund  of  wealth  cheaply  accessible  to 
France  ?  I  confess  I  know  not.  But  why  do  I  bore  you  with  a 
prize  question  ? 

N.  continues  to  mend.  We  are  air  well.  Thank  you  for 
more  of  Doctor  Lathrop.  Remember  me  to  all  friends,  es 
pecially  to  those  of  your  household.  A  kiss  for  little  Bess. 

Your's,  8cc. 

FISHER  >MES. 

64 


506  LETTERS. 

TO  MR.  *********,  MEMBER  OF  CONGRESS,  AT  WASHINGTON. 

DEDHAM,  February  14th,  1806. 
MY  DEAR  SIR, 

I  HAVE  sent  your  letters  to  Mr.  *****,  who,  I  am  sure, 
will  think  their  contents  as  interesting  as  I  do.  Indeed,  "  they 
suit  the  gloomy  habit  of  my  soul,'*  as  Young  says  in  his  Zanga. 
I  am  infinitely  dejected  with  the  view  of  Europe,  as  well  as 
of  our  own  country  ;  and  I  begin  to  consider  the  utmost  extreme 
of  publick  evils  as  more  dreadfully  imminent  than  ever  I 
did  before.  I  have  long  consoled  myself  with  believing, 
that  the  germs  of  political  evil  as  well  as  of  good  lie  long, 
like  the  unnumbered  seeds  of  every  species  of  plants,  in  the 
ground  without  sprouting  ;  and  that  it  was  unnecessary  and 
unwise  to  contemplate  the  possibilities  of  national  servitude, 
and,  more  properly,  of  universal  convulsion  ancf  ruin  under  a 
French  empire  as  either  very  near  or  very  probable.  Late 
events,  I  confess,  lessen  my  confidence  in  the  military  capa 
city  of  resistance  of  all  the  foes  of  France,  England  not  ex- 
cepted.  A  fate  seems  to  sweep  the  prostrate  world  along, 
that  is  not  to  be  averted  by  submission,  nor  retarded  by  arms. 
The  British  navy  stands  like  Briareus,  parrying  the  thunder 
bolts,  but  can  hurl  none  back  again  ;  and  if  Buonaparte  effects 
his  conquest  of  the  dry  land,  the  empire  of  the  sea  must  in 
the  end  belong  to  him.  That  he  will  reign  supreme  and 
alone  on  the  continent  is  to  be  disputed  by  nobody  but  Russia  ; 
and  if  pride,  poverty,  distance,  false  ambition,  or  fools  in  his 
cabinet  persuade  the  emperour  Alexander  to  make  a  separate 
peace,  France  must  be  Rome,  and  Russia,  Parthia,  invincible 
and  insignificant.  The  second  Punick  war  must  terminate  in 
that  case,  for  aught  I  can  see,  in  the  ruin  of  England ;  and  the 
world  must  bow  its  base  neck  to  the  yoke.  It  will  sweat  in 
servitude  and  grope  in  darkness,  perhaps,  another  thousand 
years.  For  the  emulation  of  the  European  states,  extinguish 
ed  by  the  establishment  of  one  empire,  will  no  longer  sustain 


LETTERS,  507 

the  arts.  They  and  the  sciences  will  soon  become  the  cor- 
rupters  of  society.  It  is  already  doubtful,  whether  the  press 
is  not  their  enemy. 

I  MAKE  no  doubt,  Buonaparte  will  offer  almost  carte  blanche 
to  Russia  and  Austria,  saving  only  his  rights  as  master  ;  and  I 
greatly  fear,  that  Russia  will  be  lured,  as  Austria  will  be  forc 
ed,  to  abandon  Great  Britain.  Another  peace  makes  Buona 
parte  master  of  Europe. 

RUSSIA  has  soldiers,  and  they  are  brave  enough  ;  and  I 
should  think  so  vast  an  augmentation  of  the  French  empire 
would  seem  to  Alexander  to  demand  the  exertion  of  all  his 
vast  energies.  Without  Pitt's  gold,  this  will  be  a  slow  and 
inadequate  exertion  ;  and  how  Pitt  is  to  get  money,  if  neutrals 
take  this  generous  opportunity  to  quarrel  with  him,  I  can 
not  see. 

IF  we  intend  to  quarrel  and  to  assert  our  claims  in  arms,  it 
may  be  wise  and  right  to  take  up  our  cause  as  we  do  ;  for  if 
England  will  not  recede,  we  cannot  honourably — which  last 
word,  I  well  know,  is  a  mere  expletive,  of  no  more  import 
than  a  semicolon,  or  rather  an  interjection.  If  we  resolve, 
that  Great  Britain  shall  fight  or  yield,  and  that  theUnited  States 
will  sooner  fight  than  yield,  it  is  all  of  a  piece  to  argue  and 
bluster  as  we  do.  But  on  the  hypothesis,  that  we  mean  peace 
in  every  event,  the  folly  of  this  prompt  assumption  of  our  ulti 
matum  is  strange.  I  am  the  more  ready  to  think  it  so,  because 
I  expect  to  hear  John  Bull  say,  he  is  as  little  convinced  as 
afraid.  Like  a  good  citizen,  I  am  silent  while  our  side  is 
argued ;  but  I  am  far  from  thinking  it  impossible,  that  the 
question  should  appear  to  the  candid  and  intelligent  to  have 
another  side.  If  it  has,  I  abstain  from  all  insult  and  reproach 
and  from  all  feelings  of  indignation  against  Great  Britain  for 
her  alleged  "  interpolations." 

IT  is  ever  a  misfortune  for  a  man  to  differ  from  the  political 
or  religious  creed  of  his  countiymen.  You  will  not  fail  to,  per 
ceive,  that  I  am  worse  than  a  lingerer  in  my  faith  in  the  con- 
clusiveness  of  the  reasoning  of  Mr.  Madison  8c  Co.  This, 
however,  I  keep  to  myself  and  less  than  half  a  dozen  friends. 


508  LETTERS. 

As  you  seem  to  be  more  orthodox  than  I  am  on  this  article,  I 
am  the  more  ready  to  applaud  your  generous  and  just  senti 
ments  in  favour  of  the  British  cause  against  France. 

IT  has  never  happened,  I  believe,  for  any  great  length  of 
time,  that  our  American  affairs  have  been  much  governed 
either  by  our  policy  or  blunders.  Events  abroad  have  impos 
ed  both  their  character  and  result ;  and  I  see  no  reason  to 
doubt,  that  this  is  to  be  the  case  more  than  ever.  If  France 
dictates  by  land  and  sea,  we  fall  without  an  effort.  The  wind 
of  the  cannon-ball  that  smashes  John  Bull's  brains  out,  will 
lay  us  on  our  backs  with  all  our  tinsel  honours  in  the  dirt. 

THEREFORE,  I  think  I  may,  and  I  feel  that  I  must  return 
to  European  affairs. 

Two  obstacles,  and  only  two,  impede  the  establishment  of 
universal  monarchy  :  Russia  and  the  British  navy.  The  mili 
tary  means  of  the  former  are  vast,  her  troops  numerous  and 
brave.  Of  money  she  has  little,  but  a  little  goes  a  great  way, 
for  every  thing  is  cheap.  This  is  owing  to  the  barbarism  of 
her  inhabitants.  Now  for  revenue  a  highly  civilized  state  is 
most  favourable.  But  for  arms,  I  beg  leave  to  doubt,  whether 
men  half  savage  are  not  best.  Not  because  rude  nations  have 
more  courage  than  those  that  are  polished,  but  because  they 
have  not  such  an  invincible  aversion  to  a  military  life  as  the 
sons  of  luxury  and  pleasure,  and  the  sons  of  labour  too,  in  the 
latter.  As  society  refines,  greater  freedom  of  the  choice  of 
life  is  progressively  allowed  ;  and  the  endless  variety  of  employ 
ments  and  arts  of  life  attaches  men,  and  almost  all  the  men,  to 
the  occupations  of  peace.  To  bring  soldiers  into  the  field,  the 
prince  must  overbid  the  allurements  of  these  occupations.  He 
exhausts  his  treasury  without  filling  his  camp. 

BUT  in  Russia  men  are  yet  cheap,  as  well  as  provisions. 
Little  is  left  to  the  peasantry  to  choose,  whether  they  will  stand 
in  the  ranks  or  at  a  work-bench  ;  and  though  the  emperour 
may  not  incline  absolutely  to  force  men  into  the  army,  a  sum 
of  money,  that  John  Bull  would  disdain  to  accept,  would  allure 
them  in  crowds.  Russia  in  Asia  is  thinly  settled.  But  Russia 
in  Europe  is  the  seat  of  five-sixths  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  em- 


LETTERS.  509 

pire,  and  not  very  deficient  in  populousness,  if  we  consider  the 
extent  of  unimprovable  lands,  and  the  little  demand  for  manufac 
turing  labour.  With  thirty  millions  in  Europe,  Russia  is  surely 
able  to  withstand  Buonaparte ;  and  the  latter  will  not  long  for 
bear  to  say  to  ci-devant  Poland :  "  shake  off  your  chains,  rise 
to  liberty  and  fraternity."  Prussia  and  Austria  could  say  nothing 
against  this ;  but  Russia  could  not  and  would  not  acquiesce 
in  it. 

I  AMUSE  myself  with  inquiring  into  the  existence  of  physi 
cal  means  to  resist  France.  I  seem  to  forget,  though  in  truth 
I  do  not  forget,  that  means  twice  as  great  once  existed  in  the 
hands  of  the  feHen  nations.  They  were  divided  in  counsel, 
and  taken  unprepared.  Russia,  being  a  single  power,  and  un 
tainted  with  revolution  mania,  and  plainly  seeing  her  danger, 
ought  to  do  more  than  all  the  rest.  Yet,  after  all,  I  well  know, 
that,  if  small  minds  preside  on  great  occasions,  they  are  sure 
to  temporize,  when  the  worst  of  all  things  is  to  do  nothing ; 
and  very  possibly  the  Russian  cabinet  sages  partake  of  this 
fatal  blockheadship. 

IT  also  seems  to  me,  that  the  science,  or,  at  least,  the  prac 
tice  of  war  has  greatly  changed  since  Marlborough's  days.  In 
1702  to  1709  or  1710,  he  fought  a  great  battle  on  a  plain  of 
six  miles  extent.  On  gaining  the  victory,  he  besieged  a  for 
tress  as  big  as  an  Indian  trading  post,  mined,  scaled,  battered, 
and  fought  six  weeks  to  take  it,  and  then  went  into  winter 
quarters.  Thus  the  war  went  on  campaign  after  campaign, 
as  slowly  as  the  Middlesex  canal,  which  in  eight  years  has 
been  dug  thirty  miles. 

THE  French  have  done  with  sie'ges  and  field  battles.  Posts 
are  occupied  along  the  whole  frontier  line  of  a  country.  If 
the  line  of  defence  be  less  extensive,  they  pass  round  it ;  if 
weakened  by  extent,  through  it.  An  immense  artillery,  light, 
yet  powerful,  rains  such  a  horrible  tempest  on  any  point  that  is 
to  be  forced,  that  the  defenders  are  driven  back,  before  the 
charge  of  the  bayonet  is  resorted  to.  The  lines  once  forced, 
the  defending  army  falls  back,  takes  new  positions,  and  again 
loses  them  as  before.  Thus  a  country  is  taken  possession  of 


512  LETTERS. 

THE  discords  of  your  democratick  leaders  will  raise  hopes 
of  good,  for  the  federalists  are  stubborn  hofiers.  ********  no 
longer  the  guest  of  the  great  man's  private  board,  no  longer 
his  earwig,  will  not  be  his  antagonist.  If  he  is,  he  will  lose 
his  party  and  his  influence.  These  people  may  disagree  about 
the  manner  or  even  the  extent  of  doing  mischief,  but  to  do 
good  they  have  neither  inclination  nor  understanding.  Our 
disease  is  democracy.  It  is  not  the  skin  that  festers — our  very 
bones  are  carious,  and  their  marrow  blackens  with  gangrene. 
Which  rogues  shall  be  first,  is  of  no  moment — our  republican 
ism  must  die,  and  I  am  sorry  for  it.  But  why  should  we  care 
what  sexton  happens  to  be  in  office  at  our  funeral  Neverthe 
less,  though  I  indulge  no  hopes,  I  derive  much  entertainment 
from  the  squabbles  in  madam  Liberty's  family.  After  so  many 
liberties  have  been  taken  with  her,  I  presume  she  is  no  longer 
a  miss  and  a  virgin,  though  she  may  still  be  a  goddess. 

IT  is  a  mark  of  a  little  mind  in  a  great  man,  to  get  such 
people  about  him  for  favourites  as  our  chief  is  said  to  prefer. 
*******  thought  himself  a  Jupiter,  and  filled  his  Olympus 
with  buffoons,  sots,  and  blockheads.  Is  our  Jupiter  to  reign 
another  term  of  four  years  ?  I  am  at  a  loss  to  comprehend  his 
ardent  passion  for  buying  territory.  Is  he  land-mad,  or  is  he 
afflicted  with  a  gun-powder-phobia.  Admitting  that,  we  must 
either  buy  the  Spanish  right  or  take  it.  Reasons  of  the  day 
may  decide  in  favour  of  buying,  but  a  million  mischiefs  will 
grow  out  of  this  enlargement  of  our  territory,  and  some  of 
them  at  no  great  distance. 

I  AM  flattered  agreeably  by  finding,  that  you  and  Mr.  ****** 
approve  my  opinions  respecting  St.  Domingo.  I  have  never 
seen  that  gentleman,  but  I  have,  as  every  body  here  has,  a  very 
high  respect  for  his  merit  and  talents.  I  lament,  that  they  are 
so  much  lost  to  our  country,  which,  you  know,  is  destined  to 
the  grasp  of  all  its  vice  and  ambition,  the  ambition  of  its  low 
tyrants. 

OUR  election  will  excite  at  least  as  much  zeal  and  bustle  as 
ever.  We  live  in  the  island  of  Lemnos,  and  in  Vulcan's  own 
shop :  it  seems  as  if  we  had  no  business  but  to  forge  party 


LETTERS.  513 

thunderbolts.  We  maintain,  that  there  is  as  much  honour  as 
noise  in  this  happy  situation,  but  surely  we  cannot  deceive 
ourselves  so  far  as  to  suppose  there  ever  will  be  any  tran 
quillity. 

How  numerous  are  the  foes  of  order,  and  how  incorrect  as 
well  as  faint-hearted  are  its  friends !  !  With  respect  and  un 
feigned  regard,  I  am,  dear  sir, 

Your's  truly, 

FISHER  AMES. 


TO  THE  SAME. 

DEDHAM,  January  12th,  1807. 
MY  DEAR  SIR, 

THE  man  who  never  flatters  cannot  avoid  furnishing  the 
occasions  for  his  friends  to  flatter  themselves.  Indeed,  their 
being  his  friends  will  furnish  one.  Your  kind  wishes  for  my 
health,  in  your  favour  of  new-year's  day  will  afford  another.  I 
was  much  gratified  by  the  perusal  of  the  other  parts  of  your 
letter,  but  that  part  was  not  the  least  pleasing.  In  return,  I 
will  wish,  that  fortune  may  serve  you  as  well  as  you  serve  your 
country,  and  that  one  of  your  rewards  and  enjoyments  may  be 
to  see  it  escape  from  the  perils  to  which  it  is  blind,  and  the 
administration  to  which  it  is  now  partial. 

You  describe  our  dangers  and  disgraces  with  so  just  a  dis 
cernment  of  their  causes,  and  with  so  much  feeling  for  the 
pubiick  evils  that  will  be  their  consequences,  that  I  am  ready 
to  Acquit  former  republicks  from  a  good  deal  of  the  reproach 
th. t  has  survived  their  ruin,  the  reproach  of  wanting  sense  to 
see  it,  when  it  was  obvious  and  near.  Probably,  however,  we 
shall  yet  find  evidence  enough  in  the  works  of  their  great  wri 
ters  to  prove,  that  the  wise  and  good  among  their  citizens  did 
foresee  their  fate,  and  would  have  resisted  it,  if  they  could  ; 
bu  that  a  repubiick  tends,  experience  says,  irresistibly,  towards 
licentiousness,  and  that  a  licentious  republirk  or  democracy  is 
65 


514  LETTERS. 

of  all  governments  'that  very  one  in  which  the  wise  and  good 
are  most  completely  reduced  to  impotence.  Such  men  no 
more  deserve  the  reproach  that  their  republicks  fall,  than  that 
ships  are  cast  away  at  sea  ;  or,  if  I  may  drop  all  high  metaphor 
and  speak  like  a  farmer,  that  a  fence  falls,  when  it  is  support 
ed  by  nothing  but  white  birch  stakes.  It  is  the  nature  of  these 
to  fail  in  two  years  ;  and  a  republick  wears  out  its  morals 
almost  as  soon  as  the  sap  of  a  white  birch  rots  the  wood. 

AND  are  we  not  fated  to  have  our  present  chief  the  longer 
on  account  of  his  inefficiency  ?  His  whole  care  is  to  be  where 
he  is,  and  to  do  nothing  to  risk  his  place.  Unless  great  pub- 
lick  disasters  get  the  multitude  angry  with  this  do-nothing 
policy,  they  will  like  it  exceedingly.  The  chiefs  of  party,  of 
course,  cannot  get  a  handle  to  turn  him  out ;  and  their  induce 
ment  to  do  it  is  always  least,  when  the  squad  of  the  party  that 
is  secretly  opposed  to  him  is  the  most  clearly  convinced  of  his 
imbecility.  It  is  not  contempt,  it  is  the  dread  of  a  really  able 
man  at  the  head  of  a  hostile  party,  that  rouses  all  the  fierce 
ness  of  political  competition. 

IT  is  natural  to  ask,  whether  we  are  not  hastening  to  the 
time  when  publick  disasters  will  make  him  obnoxious.  It 
seems  to  me  probable,  his  election  will  happen  first.  Of  course, 
our  country  must  remain  unprepared,  and  be  ruined,  if  it 
please  God  to  permit  the  British  navy  to  belong  to  Buonaparte. 
The  Assyrian  will  tread  us  down  like  the  mire  of  the  streets. 
I  have  read  the  tenth  chapter  of  Isaiah,  to  which  you  refer  me, 
and  I  think  it  strikingly  applicable  to  the  French  and  to  the 
United  States.  As,  however,  the  British  navy  may  resist  for 
several  years,  we  may  be  permitted  without  interruption  to 
finish  our  destruction  ourselves. 

I  AM  a  little  less  disposed  than  most  persons,  to  throw  all 
the  blame  of  delaying  to  resist  France  on  the  king  of  Prussia. 
Last  fall  I  stated,  that,  unless  the  coalition  would  consent  to 
make  him  great  ^  they  had  no  right  to  expect  to  make  him  hos 
tile  to  Buonaparte  ;  that  small  powers  could  not  now  exist  in 
Europe  independent ;  that  Prussia  would  be  ruined  by  France, 
if  he  joined  against  her,  and  the  coalition  failed  of  its  object ; 


LETTERS.  515 

that  he  would  as  certainly  be  ruined  by  his  allies,  if  the  coalition 
succeeded,  for  he  would  be  little  and  they  great ;  and  that  the 
foresight  of  thjs  manifest  danger  would  justify  him,  if  he  insist 
ed,  as  a  sine  qua  non,  to  be  made  as  potent  at  least  as  Austria  ; 
that  he  ought  to  have  Hanover,  Saxony,  Hesse,  and  Holland 
added  to  his  kingdom,  indemnifying  in  money  or  other  terri 
tory  the  ousted  princes  ;  and  thus  he  would  be  placed  to  fight 
France  with  only  the  Rhine  for  a  barrier  ;  but  I  added,  that, 
probably,  neither  of  the  parties  to  the  coalition  would  agree  to 
his  aggrandizement. 

IT  was  not  long  after  the  disasters  of  Austria,  before  the  king 
of  England,  as  elector  of  Hanover,  declared  to  the  king  of 
Prussia,  that  in  no  possible  event  would  he  alienate  his  Ger 
man  dominions.  Such  narrow  views,  such  stiffness,  at  a  time 
which  required  yielding  to  a  friend,  lest  he  should  have  to  yield 
to  a  foe,  still  appear  to  me  to  merit  the  reproach  of  ruining  the 
coalition,  and  of  excluding  the  king  of  Prussia  when  he  was 
willing  to  reinforce  it.  His  late  manifesto  alludes  darkly  to 
some  of  these  facts.  His  gallant  conduct  in  meeting  Buona 
parte  in  the  field  of  battle  was,  probably,  well  and  maturely 
considered  beforehand  ;  yet  it  has  turned  out  wrong,  for,  if 
he  had  led  his  army  to  join  the  Russians,  the  battle  would  have 
been  yet  to  fight,  and  the  event  might  have  been  different.  It 
seems  as  if  Frederick  thought  a  defensive  system  a  poor  one 
against  the  French.  In  that,  no  doubt,  he  was  right ;  still  I 
wish  he  had  waited  for  the  Russians. 

I  THINK,  I  have  formerly  communicated  to  you  some  reflec 
tions  I  had  made  on  the  causes  of  the  steady  superiority  main 
tained  in  war  by  the  French  armies,  and  that  I  ascribed  them 
to  their  superiority  in  numbers,  in  cavalry,  and  in  artillery. 
From  hence  it  follows,  that  fortified  towns  are  of  little  signi 
ficance,  and  small  arms  of  much  less  than  formerly.  On  each 
of  these  heads  I  could  dilate,  but  I  think  it  needless  to  you. 
But  the  consequence  of  this  real  superiority  is,  that  the  defen 
sive  system  is  no  longer  to  be  trusted.  Nations  could  formerly 
spin  out  a  war,  and  tire  down  a  foe.  To  conquer  was,  of  course, 
next  to  impossible.  Since,  however,  the  experience  of  the 


514  LETTERS. 

of  all  governments  'that  very  one  in  which  the  wise  and  good 
are  most  completely  reduced  to  impotence.  Such  men  no 
more  deserve  the  reproach  that  their  republicks  fall,  than  that 
ships  are  cast  away  at  sea  ;  or,  if  I  may  drop  all  high  metaphor 
and  speak  like  a  farmer,  that  a  fence  falls,  when  it  is  support 
ed  by  nothing  but  white  birch  stakes.  It  is  the  nature  of  these 
to  fail  in  two  years ;  and  a  republick  wears  out  its  morals 
almost  as  soon  as  the  sap  of  a  white  birch  rots  the  wood. 

AND  are  we  not  fated  to  have  our  present  chief  the  longer 
on  account  of  his  inefficiency  ?  His  whole  care  is  to  be  where 
he  is,  and  to  do  nothing  to  risk  his  place.  Unless  great  pub- 
lick  disasters  get  the  multitude  angry  with  this  do-nothing 
policy,  they  will  like  it  exceedingly.  The  chiefs  of  party,  of 
course,  cannot  get  a  handle  to  turn  him  out ;  and  their  induce 
ment  to  do  it  is  always  least,  when  the  squad  of  the  party  that 
is  secretly  opposed  to  him  is  the  most  clearly  convinced  of  his 
imbecility.  It  is  not  contempt,  it  is  the  dread  of  a  really  able 
man  at  the  head  of  a  hostile  party,  that  rouses  all  the  fierce 
ness  of  political  competition. 

IT  is  natural  to  ask,  whether  we  are  not  hastening  to  the 
time  when  publick  disasters  will  make  him  obnoxious.  It 
seems  to  me  probable,  his  election  will  happen  first.  Of  course, 
our  country  must  remain  unprepared,  and  be  ruined,  if  it 
please  God  to  permit  the  British  navy  to  belong  to  Buonaparte. 
The  Assyrian  will  tread  us  down  like  the  mire  of  the  streets. 
I  have  read  the  tenth  chapter  of  Isaiah,  to  which  you  refer  me, 
and  I  think  it  strikingly  applicable  to  the  French  and  to  the 
United  States.  As,  however,  the  British  navy  may  resist  for 
several  years,  we  may  be  permitted  without  interruption  to 
finish  our  destruction  ourselves. 

I  AM  a  little  less  disposed  than  most  persons,  to  throw  all 
the  blame  of  delaying  to  resist  France  on  the  king  of  Prussia. 
Last  fall  I  stated,  that,  unless  the  coalition  would  consent  to 
make  him  great,  they  had  no  right  to  expect  to  make  him  hos 
tile  to  Buonaparte  ;  that  small  powers  could  not  now  exist  in 
Europe  independent ;  that  Prussia  would  be  ruined  by  France, 
if  he  joined  against  her,  and  the  coalition  failed  of  its  object ; 


LETTERS.  515 

lhat  he  would  as  certainly  be  ruined  by  his  allies,  if  the  coalition 
succeeded,  for  he  would  be  little  and  they  great ;  and  that  the 
foresight  of  this  manifest  danger  would  justify  him,  if  he  insist 
ed,  as  a  sine  qua  non,  to  be  made  as  potent  at  least  as  Austria  ; 
that  he  ought  to  have  Hanover,  Saxony,  Hesse,  and  Holland 
added  to  his  kingdom,  indemnifying  in  money  or  other  terri 
tory  the  ousted  princes  ;  and  thus  he  would  be  placed  to  fight 
France  with  only  the  Rhine  for  a  barrier  ;  but  I  added,  that, 
probably,  neither  of  the  parties  to  the  coalition  would  agree  to 
his  aggrandizement. 

IT  was  not  long  after  the  disasters  of  Austria,  before  the  king 
of  England,  as  elector  of  Hanover,  declared  to  the  king  of 
Prussia,  that  in  no  possible  event  would  he  alienate  his  Ger 
man  dominions.  Such  narrow  views,  such  stiffness,  at  a  time 
which  required  yielding  to  a  friend,  lest  he  should  have  to  yield 
to  a  foe,  still  appear  to  me  to  merit  the  reproach  of  ruining  the 
coalition,  and  of  excluding  the  king  of  Prussia  when  he  was 
willing  to  reinforce  it.  His  late  manifesto  alludes  darkly  to 
some  of  these  facts.  His  gallant  conduct  in  meeting  Buona 
parte  in  the  field  of  battle  was,  probably,  well  and  maturely 
considered  beforehand ;  yet  it  has  turned  out  wrong,  for,  if 
he  had  led  his  army  to  join  the  Russians,  the  battle  would  have 
been  yet  to  fight,  and  the  event  might  have  been  different.  It 
seems  as  if  Frederick  thought  a  defensive  system  a  poor  one 
against  the  French.  In  that,  no  doubt,  he  was  right ;  still  I 
wish  he  had  waited  for  the  Russians. 

I  THINK,  I  have  formerly  communicated  to  you  some  reflec 
tions  I  had  made  on  the  causes  of  the  steady  superiority  main 
tained  in  war  by  the  French  armies,  and  that  I  ascribed  them 
to  their  superiority  in  numbers,  in  cavalry,  and  in  artillery. 
From  hence  it  follows,  that  fortified  towns  are  of  little  signi 
ficance,  and  small  arms  of  much  less  than  formerly.  On  each 
of  these  heads  I  could  dilate,  but  I  think  it  needless  to  you. 
But  the  consequence  of  this  real  superiority  is,  that  the  defen 
sive  system  is  no  longer  to  be  trusted.  Nations  could  formerly 
spin  out  a  war,  and  tire  down  a  foe.  To  conquer  was,  of  course, 
next  to  impossible.  Since,  however,  the  experience  of  the 


516  LETTERS. 

French  system  has  evinced,  that  absolute  conquest  is  no  longer 
an  improbable  event  of  a  contest  with  France,  it  becomes  ob 
vious,  that  nations,  who  would  be  safe*  must  get  the  sort  of  force 
that  gives  to  France  this  tremendous  superiority.  Relying  no 
longer  on  a  frontier  of  fortified  towns,  with  strong  garrisons 
and  a  weak  army  of  observation  in  the  field,  they  must  now 
have  numbers,  cavalry,  and  artillery  superior  to  the  invader, 
or  make  up  their  minds  to  submit  to  him.  A  navy,  if  we  had 
one,  might  hinder  this  invader  from  coming  over.  But  if  he 
comes,  he  will  be  our  master,  if  we  have  nothing  but  militia  with 
small  arms  to  oppose  his  march.  Indeed,  his  march  would  be  a 
quiet  procession  through  the  centre  of  the  states  from  Nor 
folk  to  New -York,  little  disturbed,  and  not  at  all  obstructed  by 
myriads  of  popping  militia.  Such  an  enemy  could  get  horses  by 
stripping  the  coasts.  Our  patriots  too  would,  no  doubt,  supply 
them  for  a  good  price.  The  light  artillery  they  would  bring 
with  them  ;  and  as  the  French  stow  men  as  thick  in  their  ships 
as  the  Guinea  traders  do  their  negro  slaves,  they  could  bring 
over  fifty  thousand  troops  and  twenty  thousand  dismounted 
dragoons.  What  could  we  do  but  join  Duane  in  lamenting, 
that  we  had  so  long  suffered  anglo-federai  presses  to  provoke 
the  great  nation  ?  Apropos  of  Duane,  how  audaciously  insolent 
he  is  on  that  subject. 

THESE  are  my  grounds  for  shewing,  that,  unless  we  prepare, 
and  on  a  great  scale,  we  must  submit  whenever  the  English 
give  out. 

I  REALLY  wish  you  would  examine  this,  perhaps  obscure, 
sketch  of  the  grounds  of  my  military  notions,  to  convince  Mr. 
Giles  how  defenceless  we  are,  and  how  fallacious  are  his  popu 
lar  ideas.  The  sing-song  of  Bunker  hill  Yankee  heroes  will 
not  do  against  the  French.  They  understand  their  trade.  An 
inferiour  army,  even  of  regulars,  would  be  exposed,  would  be 
sure  to  have  its  flank  turned  ;  and  thus  a  victory  would  be  won 
without  a  chance  to  fight.  With  a  numerous  hostile  cavalry, 
there  would  be  no  chance  for  running  away.  Is  any  country, 
then,  more  conquerable  than  the  United  States  from  New- York 
Southward  ?  Even  our  Yankee  land,  though  abounding  in  strong 


LETTERS.  517 

posts,  would  be  destitute  of  men  and  means  to  occupy  and 
maintain  them.  My  plan  would  be,  that  the  utmost  energies 
of  the  United  States  should  be  called  forth  to  equip  a  powerful 
fleet  of  ships  of  the  line,  and  to  array  a  considerable  body  of 
artillerists,  and  a  military  school  of  engineers,  &c.  and  regiments 
enough  to  supply  officers  ;  the  complement  of  men  to  be  small. 
On  the  whole,  a  less  number  than  twelve  thousand  I  should 
think  unsafe  to  trust  to. 

IF  any  fears  of  the  danger  to  liberty  should  arise  from  such 
an  army,  have  a  select  militia  three  times  as  numerous  of  yeo 
manry,  encamped  yearly  in  such  numbers  as  would  teach  dis 
cipline,  and  let  that  be  perfect.  To  that  end  there  must  be 
martial  law  in  the  camp. 

I  WELL  know,  that  all  this  is  moonshine,  and  that  embarrass 
ments  in  executing  so  great  a  plan  would  arise.  The  people 
would  think  it  madness;  the  federalists  would  be  as  much 
afraid  of  arming  as  the  democrats.  I  know  too,  as  a  conse 
quence  of  all  this,  that  we  fall  when  the  navy  of  our  unthanked 
champion  is  withdrawn.  Fifty  thousand  real  soldiers  might 
make  us  safe ;  and  we  might  have,  and  ought  to  have  a  navy 
to  block  up  Cadiz,  Brest,  and  Toulon  whenever  England  makes 
peace,  and  our  danger  from  France  should  make  it  necessary. 

I  WILL  ask  of  Mr.  *****  the  perusal  of  your  letter  to  him. 

Your's  &c. 

FISHER  AMES. 


TO  THE  SAME. 

DEDHAM,  November  6tb,  1807. 
MY  DEAR  SIR, 

YOUR  favour  of  the  28th  October,  covering  the  message 
and  documents  referred  to,  reached  me  yesterday  somewhat 
unexpectedly.  I  had  supposed  you  would  not  go  on  to  Wash 
ington  before  November.  Besides,  shut  up  half  my  time  in  a 
sick  chamber,  and  the  other  half  in  my  parlour,  I  am  unaffect 
edly  sensible  of  my  insignificance.  If,  however,  you  and  my 
worthy  friend  Mr.  ******  think  fit  sometimes  to  send  me  in- 


518  LETTERS. 

telligence,  I  shall  be  grateful.     I  am  in  the  habit  of  thinking 
your  comments  better  than  the  text. 

I  WAS  disgusted  about  a  fortnight  since,  on  reading  a  short 
piece  tending  to  shew,  that  Great  Britain  had  the  empire  of 
the  sea  and  Buonaparte  of  the  land  ;  that  both  obtained  it  by 
fores,  which  gives,  them  all  the  rights  they  have,  the  one  to 
subjugate  the  nations,  and  the  other  to  make  and  expound  the 
laws  of  nations.  When  federal  newspapers  publish  such  stuff, 
are  we  to  wonder  at  the  folly  of  our  people  ?  Have  we  any  se 
curity,  as  long  as  that  folly  or  worse  reigns  ?  I  am  ready  to  be 
lieve,  that  we,  as  great  boasters  as  the  ancient  Greeks,  are  the 
most  ignorant  nation  in  the  world,  because  we  have  had  the 
least  experience.  Fresh  from  the  hands  of  a  political  mother, 
who  would  not  let  us  fall,  we  now  think  it  impossible  that  we 
should  fall.  Buonaparte  will  cure  us  of  our  presumption  ;  or 
if  that  task  should  be  left  to  some  other  rough  teacher,  we 
shall  learn  at  last  the  art,  that  is,  the  habits,  manners,  and  pre 
judices  of  a  nation,  especially  the  firejudices  which  are  worth 
more  than  philosophy,  without  which  I  venture  to  consider 
our  playing  government  as  a  sort  of  free  negro  attempt.  It 
would  seem  as  if  it  were  necessary,  that  we  should  endure 
slavery  for  some  ages,  till  every  drop  of  democratick  blood  has 
been  got  rid  of  by  fermentation  or  bleeding.  I  dread  to  look 
forward  to  the  dismal  scenes,  through  which  my  children  are 
to  pass.  As  every  nation  has  been  trodden  under  foot,  ground 
in  a  mill,  and  purged  in  the  fire  of  adversity,  1  know  not  why 
\ve  should  hope  for  all  fair  weather  and  sunshine,  for  peace 
and  gainful  commerce  and  an  everlasting  futurity  of  elysium, 
before  we  have  lived  and  suffered  as  others  have  done.  We 
seem  to  expect  a  state  of  felicity  before  a  state  of  probation. 
Of  our  six  millions  of  people  there  are  scarcely  six  hundred, 
who  yet  look  for  liberty  any  where  except  on  paper.  Excuse 
me — I  am  teazing  you  with  a  theme  as  trite  and  as  tragical  as 
the  Children  in  the  Wood. 

I  THANK  you  from  my  heart  for  the  offer  of  your  corres 
pondence.  I  am  an  outside  passenger,  and  should  like  to  know 
what  the  gentlefolks  are  doing  inside. 


LETTERS.  519 

MY  health  is  exceedingly  tender.  While  I  sit  by  the  fire 
and  keep  my  feet  warm,  I  am  not  sick.  I  have  heard  of  a 
college  lad's  question,  which  tolerably  describes  my  case  : 
"  Whether  bare  being,  without  life  or  existence,  is  better  than 
not  to  be,  or  not  ?"  I  cannot  solve  so  deep  a  problem  ;  but 
as  long  as  you  are  pleased  to  allow  me  a  place  in  your  esteem, 
I  shall  continue  to  hold  better  than  "  not  to  be"  to  be, 
.  Dear  sir, 

Your  friend,  &c. 

FISHER  AMES. 


THE  END, 


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